Trump's Gaza Plan 'Unacceptable': Fidan

"This is an unacceptable issue, even opening it up for discussion is wrong," Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan told the official news agency Anadolu in broadcast comments.

"We are against all initiatives that seek to exclude the people of Gaza from the equation," he said.

Trump made his announcement to audible gasps during a joint press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whom he was hosting at the White House for talks.

In a proposal that lacked details on how he would move out more than two million Palestinians or control Gaza, Trump said he would make the war-battered enclave "unbelievable" by removing unexploded bombs and rubble, and economically redeveloping it.

"The U.S. will take over the Gaza Strip and we will do a job with it, too. We'll own it," Trump said.

He said there was support from the "highest leadership" in the Middle East and upped pressure on Egypt and Jordan to take the Gazans - despite both countries flatly rejecting the idea.

Suggesting "long-term ownership" by the United States, Trump said his idea would make it "the Riviera of the Middle East. This could be something that could be so magnificent."

Hamas, which seized sole power of Gaza in 2007, rejected the proposal, branding it a" racist" idea aimed at "eliminating" the Palestinian cause.

"The American racist stance aligns with the Israeli extreme right's position in displacing our people and eliminating our cause," Hamas spokesman Abdel Latif al-Qanou said in a statement.

Source: HDN