Baku. TurkicWorld:

Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu pledged full solidarity with Palestine and said Turkey will support its struggle for independence and sovereignty, in a joint news conference with his counterpart Riad al-Maliki in Ramallah on Tuesday, reports TurkicWorld with the reference Daily Sabah.

“Turkey stands with Palestine and Palestinians in their struggle for an independent and sovereign state,” Cavushoglu said, adding that Ankara will support this cause.

He continued by noting that the vision for a two-state solution needs to be kept alive, as he said Israel’s unilateral steps in Palestine, including clashes, illegal settlements, forced evictions and demolishment, destroy the grounds for peace.

Cavushoglu headed to Palestine for a groundbreaking trip to meet with his Palestinian counterpart and the country's president on Tuesday to be followed by a visit to Israel to meet Israeli officials on Wednesday.

On Wednesday, he will hold meetings with Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid and Tourism Minister Yoel Razvozov, the first visit by a Turkish official in the past 15 years.

Cavushoglu is also expected to visit Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem during his trip.

On Monday, the Palestinian top diplomat said Israel might oppose Turkey’s well-intentioned approach toward the concretization of a two-state solution and political negotiations with Palestine.

Ties between Turkey and Israel froze after the death of 10 civilians in an Israeli raid on a Turkish flotilla carrying aid for the Gaza Strip in 2010. The two countries once again expelled their ambassadors in 2018 after another bitter falling-out and relations since remained tense. In recent months, however, the two countries have been working on a rapprochement.

Turkey has said there would be no change to Ankara’s position toward the Palestinians despite the normalization efforts with Israel.