“Erdogan is threatening to follow in the footsteps of Saddam Hussein and attack Israel. He should remember what happened then and how it ended,” Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Gaq wrote on social media in response to the Turkish president’s statement.
“We must be very strong so that Israel cannot behave so ridiculously with the Palestinians. Like it entered Karabakh, it can do the same to them, like it entered Libya. (…) This is not beyond our borders. We must be strong to take these measures,” Erdogan said in his Justice and Development Ministry. He said in a party (AKP) meeting.
Erdogan talks about “military intervention”.
The Turkish president did not elaborate on his statement. His words came during part of a speech praising the development of the Turkish defense sector. Since the start of the war in Gaza, Erdogan has been one of the most vocal critics of Israel on the international stage.
Ankara supported one of the parties in Libya’s civil war, which ended in 2020, by sending military advisers. Turkey is a close ally of Azerbaijan, which fought a successful war against separatist Armenian Nagorno-Karabakh in 2020 and finally annexed the territory in 2023. Hussein was the longtime dictatorial president of Iraq who bombed Israeli territory during the first Gulf War. After the US invasion in 2003, he was captured, tried and executed for crimes against his own citizens.