ISTANBUL, Oct. 23 (Xinhua) -- Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday that countries in the region could not make the Mediterranean a lake of peace by remaining silent and ignoring the ongoing tragedy in Gaza.

    Erdogan made the statement at the opening of the 4th Plenary Session of the Mediterranean Parliamentary Assembly in Istanbul.

    He said that today it was not possible to remain indifferent towards Palestinian issue which was the basic reason of the problems in the Middle East.

    What was happening in Gaza, a Mediterranean city, was affecting both people in Gaza and the whole Mediterranean, he added.

    He noted that if countries were not in solidarity against terrorism today, it would be too late tomorrow.

    He added that security of every country in the region had an utmost importance for everybody. He said that the security of Palestine was as important as the security of Israel.

    He said that Turkey was exerting efforts to solve disputes between Israel and Palestine, Israel and Syria as well as bring stability to Lebanon.

    Ties between the strategic allies began to sour in January when Turkey strongly condemned Israel's 22-day war in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, launched on Dec. 27 in response to rocket fire from the Palestinian territory.

    Tensions between Israel and Turkey have risen recently after Ankara excluded the Jewish state from annual joint military exercises, prompting a rebuke from the United States.