Efforts to fight global warming, help Africa and revive the faltering world economy were front and center at the World Economic Forum yesterday, a day after Middle East tensions flared publicly at the elite gathering.
An outburst by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan had shocked the business and political elites on Thursday night. Erdogan walked off the stage after trading accusations with Israeli President Shimon Peres.
Early yesterday, Erdogan was warmly greeted on arriving back home as some 5,000 supporters waving Turkish and Palestinian flags flooded Istanbul’s airport when his plane touched down.
PHOTO: AFP
Turkish TV showed some of the supporters outside of the airport gate holding banners that applauded his stance in Davos. CNN television said extra buses were being added so more people could turn out to welcome him.
Erdogan’s angry exit on Thursday night capped an hour-long debate at the forum.
Erdogan tried to rebut Peres as the discussion was ending, asking the moderator, Washington Post columnist David Ignatius, to let him speak again.
“You kill people,” Erdogan said to the Israeli president through a translator. “I remember the children who died on beaches. I remember two former prime ministers who said they felt very happy when they were able to enter Palestine on tanks.”
Afterward, Erdogan stressed he left not because of a dispute with Peres but because he was not given time to respond to the Israeli leader’s remarks. Erdogan also complained that Peres had 25 minutes while he was only given 12 minutes.
A Peres confidant, who asked not to be identified, said that the two men have good ties and that the Israeli leader understood that Erdogan’s sudden exit was directed at the moderator, not at him.
But yesterday, worries about global warming were to get attention as forum participants look at the consequences of rising seas, expanding deserts and disappearing forests. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and German Chancellor Angela Merkel were also set to make appearances.
Nobel Peace prize winner Al Gore was to join UN climate change chief Yvo de Boer and Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen to look at prospects for a global climate pact by the end of this year.
Later, former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan was to hold talks on how to make any such deal fairer to poor countries.
Earlier on Thursday, Israeli election front-runner Benjamin Netanyahu told another session in Davos that keeping nuclear weapons out of Iran’s hands was more important than the economy because the financial meltdown is reversible.
Iran maintains that it is seeking nuclear power for peaceful purposes and not for a weapons program.
An Iranian official in Davos appeared to extend a hand to the administration of US President Barack Obama as discussion broadened to include Iran, oil and what might be expected from the new leaders in Washington.
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said that Tehran would take a “cooperative approach” with the US as long as it saw changes that go beyond only words.
“We do believe that if the new administration of the United States, as Mr Obama says, is going to change its policies not in saying but practice, they will find in the region a cooperative approach and reaction,” Mottaki said.
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