ANKARA (Dispatches) – The Zionist regime had offered help to combat Turkey’s wildfires that ravaged hundreds of hectares of forests in 35 provinces but Turkish officials refused it, according to the occupying regime’s embassy in Ankara.
The embassy said in a statement on Tuesday that the Zionist officials met their Turkish counterparts a few days ago to discuss the wildfires and expressed their readiness to provide help.
“The Turkish officials [in return] said that the situation in the country was under control,” the statement said.
Turkish officials say they extinguished 129 out of 138 forest fires since 28 July, yet nine wildfires still continue to rage in four provinces.
The fires have killed at least eight people and wounded hundreds of others.
Last week, Ankara initially rejected help from Greece and the European Union, and only accepted offers from the countries that it sees as politically closer, such as Russia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Qatar.
Amid high public pressure, Turkish officials activated the European Union Civil Protection Mechanism, which directed two firefighter airplanes from Spain and one from Croatia to Turkey.
On Tuesday, a roaring blaze raced toward a Turkish thermal power plant and farmers herded panicked cattle toward the sea as wildfires raged on for a seventh day.
The nation of 84 million has been transfixed in horror as the most destructive wildfires in generations erase pristine forests and rich farmland across swaths of Turkey’s Mediterranean and Aegean coasts.
Frightened tourists have been forced to scamper onto boats for safety and dozens of villages have been evacuated as wild winds and soaring heat spread the flames.