Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan wants to send “an international protection force” to Gaza to counter Israeli Defense Forces operations against Hamas.
“President Erdogan said the international community should also give a strong and deterrent lesson to Israel,” the Turkish president’s communications directorate said in a summary of Erdogan’s latest conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin. “Underlining that works on the idea of sending an international protection force to the region in order to protect the Palestinian civilians should also be carried out, President Erdogan expressed his belief that Turkiye and Russia would display close cooperation on all these issues at the United Nations.”
Putin’s office made no mention of the proposal in a parallel readout. The rhetoric is consistent with Erdogan’s long-term interest in identifying his presidency with the late Ottoman Empire, which ruled in Jerusalem for centuries, as he conducts a series of geopolitical transactions with Putin in an apparent bid to expand Turkey’s role as a power broker in the Middle East and Central Asia.
“President Erdogan pointed out that it was important that the United Nations Security Council intervened in the matter before the crisis further worsened, and that the council should convey determined and clear messages to Israel on halting its attacks,” the Turkish statement read.
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Israeli forces have conducted numerous strikes against Hamas and Islamic Jihad as the terrorist groups have launched multiple massive waves of rocket attacks against Israel. The flare of violence erupted following a dispute over Israeli efforts to evict several Palestinian families from a neighborhood in East Jerusalem, a controversy that unfolded just as Hamas was seeking an opportunity to lash out over the impending Palestinian elections that rival Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas canceled.
The readout should be regarded as a political signal more than a practical proposal, according to a former Turkish opposition lawmaker and Erdogan critic.
“If there was an opportunity to especially bring in Turkish forces into the region, Erdogan would definitely go for it,” the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’s senior analyst Aykan Erdemir told the Washington Examiner. “When there are these crises, both Ankara and Moscow see them as opportunities to increase their respective military footprints at the expense of third-parties. … But I doubt that Putin would be interested in working with Erdogan here in such an explosive case, where Erdogan has his own game.”
Putin’s team declined to echo Erdogan’s position despite Ankara’s enthusiasm for “showing that Turkiye and Russia were of the same opinion,” as the Turkish side put it.
“[Putin and Erdogan] called on the sides of the conflict to de-escalate the tension and settle their disputes in a peaceful manner,” the Russian readout read. “At the same time, they noted the Russian and Turkish principled position of support for a dual-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict based on the universally recognized norms of international law. They also highlighted the special role of the international quartet of mediators in the peace process (Russia, the EU, the U.N., and the United States).”
Erdemir surmised that the Turkish readout is a political signal to other international audiences, rather than a sign of a serious dialogue with the Kremlin.
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“I think this readout is more a message to the rest of the world, rather than to Putin,” the former Turkish lawmaker said. “I do not expect Russia to be a key partner in advancing Erdogan’s policy and rhetoric toward Israel. But, at the same time, Erdogan can always argue, ‘Look at my readouts. … I’m raising this issue at the highest levels with leading world powers.'”
