[ad_1]
ANKARA: Turkey would like to have better ties with Israel, but Israeli policy towards the Palestinians remains “unacceptable,” President Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday (December 25).
Turkey and Israel, once allies, have had a bitter fight in recent years. Ankara has repeatedly condemned Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and its treatment of the Palestinians. He has also criticized recent US-brokered rapprochements between Israel and four Muslim countries.
“Palestine policy is our red line. It is impossible for us to accept Israel’s policies in Palestine. Its ruthless acts there are unacceptable,” Erdogan told reporters after Friday prayers in Istanbul.
“If there were no problems at the highest level (in Israel), our relations could have been very different,” he said, adding that the two countries continue to share intelligence. “We would have liked to take our ties to a better point.”
Israel’s Foreign Ministry declined to comment on Erdogan’s statement.
Turkey and Israel expelled each other’s ambassadors in 2018 after Israeli forces killed dozens of Palestinians in clashes on the Gaza border.
In August this year, Israel accused Turkey of handing over passports to a dozen Hamas members in Istanbul, describing the move as “a very hostile step.”
Hamas seized Gaza from forces loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in 2007, and the group has fought three wars with Israel since then. Turkey says that Hamas is a legitimate political movement that gained power through democratic elections.
Israel has formalized ties with four Muslim countries this year: the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco. He said Wednesday that he was working to normalize ties with a fifth Muslim nation, possibly in Asia.
Ankara has criticized the agreements negotiated by the United States, and Erdogan previously threatened to suspend diplomatic relations with the United Arab Emirates and withdraw his envoy. Turkey also criticized Bahrain’s decision to formalize the ties as a blow to efforts to defend the Palestinian cause.
The Palestinians see the US-brokered deals as a betrayal of a long-standing demand that Israel first satisfy its demand for statehood. Egypt and Israel established full relations in 1979 and Jordan in 1994.
