Israel’s defense minister accused President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of dragging Turkey “into dangerous adventures in Syria.”
“Israel will not allow any entity to threaten its security. It would be better for Erdogan to continue his detached-from-reality, fanciful rhetoric against Israel in the Turkish Parliament, rather than to attempt to test Israel’s determination to defend itself,” Israel Katz wrote on X.
The warning comes after Israel tacitly acknowledged a strike on an airbase in Syria earlier this week. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said after the strike that Israel sent a message to Turkey against setting up a base in Syria.
“We will not tolerate a Turkish military entrenchment moving southward, because it threatens us,” Netanyahu said, adding that Israel sent a message “in general terms against a Turkish military presence at an airfield in Aleppo.”
“Apparently they didn’t hear it, so we made sure they understood it more clearly,” he said.
U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack, who is also the U.S. Special Envoy for Syria, blamed Israel for the attack and condemned it.
Earlier this month, Turkey signed a defense pact with Pakistan and Saudi Arabia in Mecca. The deal means that “any armed attack against any one of the three States shall be regarded as an attack against them all,” according to Pakistan’s foreign ministry.
The recent exchange highlights the growing risk that Syria could become a direct arena of competition between Israel and Turkey, two U.S. partners with sharply conflicting security interests in the country. Israel’s willingness to strike an airfield over a potential Turkish deployment suggests it is prepared to enforce red lines militarily, while Washington’s public criticism of the attack complicates Israel’s calculations. Over the next few weeks, Washington may intervene diplomatically to prevent Israeli–Turkish tensions from escalating into a broader confrontation. (EIR)
