the leader of the Islamist movement Ismaïl Haniyeh is visiting Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan

The meeting is taking place at Dolmabahce Palace in Istanbul, but the agenda of the discussions has not been specified. Turkey wants to take a greater role in negotiations between Hamas and Israel.

Hamas leader Ismaïl Haniyeh was received in Istanbul (Turkey) by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday April 20. According to Turkish media, the meeting began early in the afternoon at Dolmabahce Palace, on the Bosphorus. The Turkish presidency released a series of photos showing the head of state presiding over the meeting with, on his right, Ismaïl Haniyeh and his delegation including Khaled Mechaal, one of the main leaders of Hamas, hugged by the head of Condition upon arrival.

According to the Turkish presidency, no press conference was planned following this meeting which lasted more than 2.5 hours, the first since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas on October 7. The day before, Recep Tayyip Erdogan Erdogan had confirmed the organization of this first tête-à-tête since July 2023, while remaining extremely discreet about its purpose: “Let’s keep the agenda to ourselves and Mr. [Ismaïl] Haniyeh”, he told journalists. Hamas, for its part, had simply clarified that the war in the Gaza Strip would be on the agenda of the discussions.

Turkey hopes to impose its mediation

Ismaïl Haniyeh arrived in Istanbul on Friday evening and met the head of Turkish diplomacy, Hakan Fidan, with whom he already spoke at length on Wednesday in Doha. On this occasion, the latter reported that Hamas representatives had told him “repeated that they accept[ai]ent the creation of a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders” therefore, implicitly the existence of the State of Israel, “and to renounce armed struggle after the creation of the Palestinian State”. The Turkish minister added that he had echoed the “Western concerns”, for whom Hamas is a terrorist movement “which they compare to Daesh”.

This visit comes at a time when Qatar has said it wants “reevaluate” its role in the difficult discussions between Israel and Hamas, its negotiators having been offended by Israeli criticism and that of certain American Democrats. Turkey could take advantage of this to try to resume mediation. Sinan Ciddi, associate researcher at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD), in Washington, recalls, however, that the Turkish president arouses rejection from Israel, because he had notably compared Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to “a Nazi” and qualified Israel “terrorist state”.