GDANSK: Shares in Istanbul dropped 7 percent on Wednesday in a slide that traders attributed to comments by Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan on the Gaza conflict, including saying the Palestinian group Hamas was not a terrorist organisation.

Trading on the Istanbul stock market was halted twice as a market-wide circuit breaker kicked in as stocks fell.

Erdogan, in his strongest comments yet on the Gaza conflict, told lawmakers from his party in parliament that Hamas is a liberation group fighting to protect Palestinian lands.

The second circuit-breaker was issued at 1424 GMT, with the benchmark BIST-100 index down 7%. The stock market said trading was due to resume at 1501 GMT.

The banking sub-index was down 6.65% “After President Tayyip Erdogan’s comments, the sell-off deepened and the circuit breaker kicked in,” said one brokerage analyst who declined to be named.

“With the escalation of geopolitical risks, a continuation of the sell-off in the stock market can be expected,” the analyst added.