Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Tuesday said nuclear power should either be free for all states or banned completely, and warned that the current "inequality" between states undermines global balances.
Turkey signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1980 and has also signed the 1996 Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, which bans all nuclear detonations for any purpose.
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Erdoğan has hinted in the past that he wanted the same protection for Turkey as Israel, which foreign analysts say possesses a sizable nuclear arsenal.
Israel maintains a policy of ambiguity around the nuclear issue, refusing to confirm or deny its capabilities.
"The position of nuclear power should either be forbidden for all or permissible for everyone," Erdoğan told the UN General Assembly annual gathering of world leaders.
Earlier in the day, the Turkish leader angered Israel when he compared the "Israeli slaughter in Gaza" to the Holocaust in a conversation with Muslims and Turkish citizens in New York.
Addressing the group, he said that "when we look at the Nazi genocide against Jews, we look at the massacre in the Gaza Strip from the same perspective," according to a report by Turkey's Anadolu news agency.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took Erdoğan to task for the remarks, saying, "He who does not stop lying about Israel, who slaughters the Kurds in his country, and who denies the awful massacre of the Armenian people, should not preach to Israel."
"Erdoğan, stop lying."
On Twitter, Foreign Minister Yisrael Katz wrote, "There is no other way to interpret Erdoğan's crude and vile words it is antisemitism, clear cut. This is proof that the responsibility of #HolocaustRemembrance is more relevant now than ever."
Yaakov Hagoel, vice chairman of the World Zionist Organization, also blasted Erdoğan, for the remarks.
"Erdoğan, the tyrant from Istanbul, continues to lash out at the Jewish people and the State of Israel. I suggest the tyrant Erdoğan look over the hate-filled and murderous history of his people on the Armenian people."
He said that Erdoğan, "who detains his opponents and persecutes his critics" should not "preach morality to the moral people in the world and the State of Israel."
He continued, "On the subject of Jerusalem, Sultan Erdoğan has dreams. I suggest he first address the restriction of human rights in Turkey."
