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ANKARA: Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Wednesday that Israel’s attacks on Syria and Lebanon had reached a point where they also threaten Turkiye, adding Israel’s aggression posed a threat to the whole world and must be stopped.
Turkiye has been one of the fiercest critics of Israel’s assaults on Iran, Gaza, and Lebanon, saying the Jewish state was the biggest obstacle to regional peace. It has halted all trade with Israel and called for measures against it at international courts.
“The attacks by (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu and his network of murder in Lebanon and Syria have brought the issue to a point where it also threatens Turkiye,” Erdogan told lawmakers from his ruling AK Party in parliament. “Our security is tied to that of these two countries.”
The Turkish leader also said Israel was leading a sneaky effort to destabilise African countries and the Mediterranean by igniting “the fire of discord” on the ethnically-split island of Cyprus. “These small entities, whose ambitions far exceed their size, have boarded Israel’s boat of mischief, taken on the role of Zionist subcontractors, and are pursuing some pipe dreams in the Eastern Mediterranean,” he said, without elaborating. “Nobody should chase adventures... I want everyone to know that if the rights of Turkiye and Turkish Cypriots are violated in the Mediterranean, our response will be very clear and very strong.”
