Turkey on Thursday suspended all imports and exports to Israel citing the country’s ongoing military action in Gaza and vowed to continue to impose the measures until the Israeli government allows the flow of humanitarian aid to the region.
A Turkish Ministry of Trade statement said: “Export and import transactions in relation to Israel have been stopped, covering all products.”
Turkish officials would coordinate with Palestinian authorities to ensure that Palestinians are not affected by the suspension of imports and exports, it said.
Photo: EPA-EFE
The ministry described the step as the “second phase” of measures against Israel, adding that the steps would remain in force until Israel “allows an uninterrupted and sufficient flow of humanitarian aid to Gaza.”
Last month, Turkey — a staunch critic of Israel’s military actions — announced that it was restricting exports of 54 types of products to Israel, including aluminum, steel, construction products and chemical fertilizers.
Israel responded by also announcing trade barriers.
Earlier on Thursday, Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs Israel Katz accused Turkey of blocking Israeli imports and exports from its ports.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan “is breaking agreements by blocking ports for Israeli imports and exports,” Katz wrote on the social platform X, previously known as Twitter.
Katz said he had instructed officials to “immediately engage with all relevant parties in the government to create alternatives for trade with Turkey, focusing on local production and imports from other countries.”
Erdogan’s government, which suffered major setbacks in local elections in March, is faced with intense pressure at home to halt trade with Israel. Critics accuse the government of engaging in double standards by leveling strong accusations against Israel while pressing ahead with commercial relations.
Turkey recognized Israel in 1949. Under Erdogan, tensions have ebbed and flowed between the countries. The Turkish president stepped up his criticism of Israel following its military offensive in Gaza, accusing it of carrying out war crimes and genocide. He has described the Hamas militant group, considered a terrorist organization by Israel, the US and the EU, as freedom fighters.
This week, Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs Hakan Fidan said Turkey had decided to join the legal case filed by South Africa against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and would soon submit a formal request to intervene in the case.
South Africa filed a case at the ICJ accusing Israel of breaching the UN Genocide Convention with its military offensive against Hamas. Israel denies that its military campaign in Gaza amounts to a breach of the convention.
Malaysia yesterday installed a motorcycle-riding billionaire sultan as its new king in lavish ceremonies for a post seen as a ballast in times of political crises. The coronation ceremony for Malaysia’s King Sultan Ibrahim, 65, at the National Palace in Kuala Lumpur followed his oath-taking in January as the country’s 17th monarch. Malaysia is a constitutional monarchy, with a unique arrangement that sees the throne change hands every five years between the rulers of nine Malaysian states headed by centuries-old Islamic royalty. While chiefly ceremonial, the position of king has in the past few years played an increasingly important role. Royal intervention was
X-37B COMPARISON: China’s spaceplane is most likely testing technology, much like US’ vehicle, said Victoria Samson, an official at the Secure World Foundation China’s shadowy, uncrewed reusable spacecraft, which launches atop a rocket booster and lands at a secretive military airfield, is most likely testing technology, but could also be used for manipulating or retrieving satellites, experts said. The spacecraft, on its third mission, was last month observed releasing an object, moving several kilometers away and then maneuvering back to within a few hundred meters of it. “It’s obvious that it has a military application, including, for example, closely inspecting objects of the enemy or disabling them, but it also has non-military applications,” said Marco Langbroek, a lecturer in optical space situational awareness at Delft
The Philippine Air Force must ramp up pilot training if it is to buy 20 or more multirole fighter jets as it modernizes and expands joint operations with its navy, a commander said yesterday. A day earlier US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said that the US “will do what is necessary” to see that the Philippines is able to resupply a ship on the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) that Manila uses to reinforce its claims to the atoll. Sullivan said the US would prefer that the Philippines conducts the resupplies of the small crew on the warship Sierra Madre,
AIRLINES RECOVERING: Two-thirds of the flights canceled on Saturday due to the faulty CrowdStrike update that hit 8.5 million devices worldwide occurred in the US As the world continues to recover from massive business and travel disruptions caused by a faulty software update from cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, malicious actors are trying to exploit the situation for their own gain. Government cybersecurity agencies across the globe and CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz are warning businesses and individuals around the world about new phishing schemes that involve malicious actors posing as CrowdStrike employees or other tech specialists offering to assist those recovering from the outage. “We know that adversaries and bad actors will try to exploit events like this,” Kurtz said in a statement. “I encourage everyone to remain vigilant