Erdogan: Trump's peace plan 'occupation project'

Turkey's leader has slammed U.S. President's Donald Trump's newly-announced Middle East plan, dismissing it as "an occupation project".

Speaking at a media awards ceremony in Ankara Thursday, Recep Tayyip Erdogan said, "Jerusalem is our red line…Jerusalem is not for sale."

Trump's plan envisions a disjointed Palestinian state that turns over key parts of the West Bank to Israel.

It sides with Israel on key contentious issues that have bedeviled past peace efforts, including borders and the status of Jerusalem and Jewish settlements, and attaches nearly impossible conditions for granting the Palestinians their hoped-for state.

The plan would create a Palestinian state in parts of the West Bank, but would allow Israel to annex nearly all of its settlements in the occupied territory.

It would allow the Palestinians to establish a capital on the outskirts of east Jerusalem but would leave most of the city under Israeli control.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas dismissed the plan as "nonsense" and vowed to resist it.

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called it a "historic breakthrough" equal in significance to the country's declaration of independence in 1948.