Turkish fueling of the genocide in Gaza must stop!

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Today, Zelena akcija/Friends of the Earth Croatia activists organised an action in front of the Turkish embassy in Zagreb as part of the International Day of Action, within the global campaign for an energy embargo on Israel. 

"At the invitation of the Palestinian and Turkish civil society, Croatia is one of the countries that joined today in expressing solidarity with Palestine. At the same time, we want to make the connection between  fossil fuels, militarisation and genocide carried out by the State of Israel clear to the public", said Marija Mileta from FoE Croatia.

Through the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) oil pipeline - one of the longest pipelines in the world - Israel receives almost 30 percent of its oil. "The goal of the campaign is to stop fueling genocide through this pipeline, whose majority owner is the British oil and gas giant, BP", Mileta pointed out. The second largest shareholder is SOCAR, the state oil company from Azerbaijan, where the 29th UN climate conference (COP29) began today.

"It's Azerbaijani oil and British owners, while Turkey allows the transport of the oil to Israeli ports through its port of Ceyhan", Mileta said. In general, Israel receives as much as 50 percent of its oil through Turkish territory.  Let's recall that Erdogan has been vocal in his alleged support for Palestine for the past year, claiming that he is doing everything to stop Israeli attacks on Gaza. "In reality, Turkey has no restrictions on energy exports to Israel.  We know how oil is used for military vehicles and war planes which Israel uses to attack Palestine and other countries", explained Mileta and added: "Because of the supply of oil for Israel's war machine, Turkey is also complicit in the genocide in Gaza". 

The call to Turkey and other countries to impose an energy embargo on Israel is one of the main demands of the Palestinian environmental civil society at the COP29 conference. "Stopping the flow of energy is key to forcing Israel to end the genocide,  and one of the main facilitators of this flow is Turkey", Mileta said.

Initiatives and associations from countries such as Ireland, United Kingdom, Spain, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Cyprus, Turkey, Palestine, Jordan, Japan, USA etc. are included in the global campaign. "FoE Croatia isn't vocal about stopping the genocide in Gaza and the wider struggle for the freedom of Palestine just from today. And for the last year, we have been giving strong support to the Croatian Free Plaestine Initiative", Mileta concluded.