Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said Turkey could resume normal relations with Israel if Israel stops killing Palestinians and allows people in Gaza to receive basic necessities, answering a question about US President Donald Trump’s call for Ankara to join the Abraham Accords with Israel.
Fidan told Nikkei Asia that Turkey and Israel have had diplomatic relations since 1949 and that bilateral trade stood at about $10 billion before Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.
The Abraham Accords are agreements that normalized relations between Israel and several Arab states during Trump’s first term.
During a call with Middle Eastern leaders in late May, Trump urged Turkey and other Muslim-majority countries to join the accords.
Fidan said Turkey had made clear that Israel “must stop killing Palestinians” and stop preventing Gazans from receiving food, shelter, medicine and water.
“If these are met, we can go back to normal life, no problem,” he said. “We want to achieve a two-state solution.”
Turkey announced in May 2024 that it had suspended all exports and imports with Israel, saying the measure would remain in place until Israel allowed the flow of humanitarian aid to Gaza. Pro-Palestinian activists as well as a UN expert have since accused Ankara of allowing indirect trade and oil flows to continue.
Fidan also dismissed remarks by Israeli politicians portraying Turkey as a possible strategic threat.
“In Israeli domestic politics, unfortunately, they need an enemy to make politics all the time to conduct their regional ambitions,” he said.
Fidan accused Israel of seeking more land rather than security and pointed to what he called Israeli occupations in Gaza, the West Bank, Syria and Lebanon.
He said the international community should prevent Israel from further destabilizing the region and the global order.
Fidan outlined a regional security framework under which countries would commit to one another’s territorial integrity, sovereignty and security.
He said such a platform could include Pakistan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Persian Gulf countries and, if relations improve, Iran.
Israel could also join such a framework if it recognizes a Palestinian state based on 1967 borders, Fidan said.
“If that problem is solved, I think the security of Israel will be very much assisted by the regional countries, too,” he said.
Նյութերը գեներացվում են տարբեր կայքերից արհեստական բանականության միջոցով