- Turkey has suspended trade with Israel, demanding a ceasefire in Gaza.
- Turkish authorities criticized Israel, as well as the West, in their announcement.
- Turkey is one of Israel’s main trading partners.
Turkey cut off trade with Israel last week, demanding a permanent ceasefire in Gaza and criticizing Western influence in the war.
Turkey has criticized Israel’s response to the October 7 Hamas terrorist attacks, in which fighters killed 1,200 Israelis and took about 200 others hostage. It is estimated that more than a hundred of these hostages are still in Gaza.
The outpouring of global support for Israel in the wake of the attacks, however, quickly dissipated as the scale of the Israeli response grew. Some 34,000 Palestinians, mostly civilian women and children, have died so far in the Israeli countryside.
Turkish authorities cited Israel’s “intransigent attitude” toward the Palestinians, particularly the recent escalation by Israeli defense forces in Gaza’s Rafah region, in their decision to suspend trade, Reuters reported.
Turkish officials said the country would suspend all exports and imports with Israel, valued at around $7 billion a year, until there is a permanent ceasefire in Gaza.
This represents a significant share of Israeli trade, according to recent trade data. In 2022, the only countries Israel imported beyond Turkey were China and the United States, according to data from the Economic Complexity Observatory, a project of the MIT Media Lab.
Although they did not name the United States, Turkish leaders also denounced Western tolerance and support for the war.
“I want to make this known: we are not looking for animosity or a fight with any country in our region,” Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said, according to Reuters.
In March, diplomatic tensions escalated after the United Nations voted for a ceasefire in the region. The United States abstained from the vote, sparking sharp dissent from Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu. With the US Congress recently approving a multibillion-dollar aid package for Israel, relations between Netanyahu and US President Joe Biden are at an all-time low.
“We have only one goal here: to force Netanyahu’s leadership, which has become uncontrollable thanks to unconditional military and diplomatic support from the West, into a ceasefire,” Erdogan said, according to Reuters.
businessinsider
