Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday that Turkey would continue to seek peace and advocate justice in the Middle East and other parts of the world.

In a televised address to the nation, Erdogan said that recent war in the Middle East has been triggering fury and violence, and further strengthening terrorism.

The prime minister pointed out, "this war is not fair and there will be no winners. On the contrary, it will lead to the defeat of the humanity as a whole."

Erdogan said, "we want peace, tranquillity, prosperity and justice for the humanity. Unfortunately, the humanity failed to preserve peace and universal values at the age of scientific and technical developments."

He stressed that "the humanity should feel the twinge of conscience. Any understanding killing innocent people and destroying cities cannot be justified whatever its motives are. Those who are sowing the seeds of hatred today, should remember that they will need peace and justice for themselves some day in the future."

"People in the Middle East have still been suffering from endless clashes and bloodshed. I want to reiterate that Turkey is ready to do everything in its power to end those people's suffering and to provide peace to the region," he added.

Calling on Israel to put an immediate end to use disproportionate force, Erdogan said, "we guaranteed Israeli authorities to find and hand over those kidnapped soldiers. However, we failed to convince them to declare a cease-fire. We hope the international community and especially the United Nations Security Council will take urgent action."

"No one should expect us to remain silent. We will never give up our hopes for a peaceful world. We believe that peace will prevail one day," he emphasized.

Diplomatic efforts are underway to stop the Hezbollah-Israel conflict which entered its 20th day on Monday, as nearly 600 Lebanese and about 50 Israelis have been killed since the clashes began on July 12.

In the other front, Israel continued its one-month-old military offensive in the Gaza Strip in a bid to rescue an Israeli soldier kidnapped by Palestinian militants on June 25 and halt Palestinian rocket attacks. Over 100 Palestinians have been killed since then.

Source: Xinhua