Turkish President Tayyip Erdoğan issued yesterday a warning to Israel in light of the massacres committed by the Israeli army during its offensive in Gaza, which has left nearly 40,000 Palestinians dead – most of them women and children – although some studies already claim that the real figure is closer to 190,000.
‘If we (in Turkey) become stronger, Israel will not be able to do what it is doing now in Palestine. Just like we went into Karabakh, just like we went into Libya, we could do the same to them,’ Erdoğan said, speaking about strengthening Turkey’s defence industry, in remarks made to members of his AKP party in his hometown of Rize in Turkey’s Black Sea region, which were echoed by several Turkish media outlets.
‘There is no reason why we can’t do this. We must be strong so that we can take these steps,’ insisted the Turkish president referring to the 2020 military deployment in Libya and the military support provided the same year to its ally Azerbaijan during the so-called Second Karabakh War.
His comments were later responded to by Israeli foreign minister Yisrael Katz, who, via the social network X compared Erdoğan’s threats against Israel to those once made by Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein: ‘Let us remind him of what happened there (in Iraq) and how it ended,’ he said, sharing a photo of the Turkish president alongside a picture of a haggard and bearded Hussein after his capture.
During his remarks, the Turkish president also reiterated his criticism of Palestinian National Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in recent days; following an opposition MP’s call for the government to invite Abbas to address the Turkish parliament in response to Netanyahu‘s speech to the US Congress, Erdoğan responded last week that such an invitation had already been made: ‘Unfortunately Abbas did not accept the invitation,’ said the Turkish leader, who has demanded that the Palestinian president must apologise to Turkey.
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Pablo Gómez is a specialist in Turkey and has been editor-in-chief of Hispanatolia since 2011. He has been analysing current affairs and geopolitics in Turkey and the surrounding region since 2006.
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