Turkey suspended its trade relations with Israel on Thursday in response to the war in Gaza, a new step in the deterioration of relations between the two countries.
“Exports and imports in relation to Israel have been suspended,” announced in a press release the Turkish Ministry of Commerce, which had already restricted the exports of Turkish companies to Israel in April.
“Turkey will apply these new measures strictly until the Israeli government allows an uninterrupted flow of humanitarian aid to Gaza,” the ministry added.
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said earlier Thursday that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had “broken the agreements [entre Israël et la Turquie] by blocking Israeli imports and exports at ports.”
The head of Israeli diplomacy said he wanted to “create alternatives to trade with Turkey, focusing on local production and imports from other countries”.
The Turkish Trade Minister did not specify whether Azerbaijani oil exports to Israel via the Turkish port of Ceyhan (south) were affected by Ankara’s decision.
According to analysts, more than a third of Israel’s oil needs until recently passed through this Turkish Mediterranean port.
Faced with growing anger among the Turkish population against maintaining trade relations with Israel, the Turkish government restricted exports to Israel of 54 categories of goods, including products made of steel, iron and aluminum, in early April.
“Terrorist state”
Turkey’s exports to Israel amounted to $5.43 billion in 2023, up from $7.03 billion in 2022 and $6.36 billion in 2021, according to the Turkish Exporters Union and statistics agency Turkstat.
Turkey says it wants to “guarantee that our Palestinian brothers forced to live under occupation are not affected by these restrictions”.
“The Republic of Turkey will continue to support the just cause of our Palestinian brothers, as it has done so far,” writes the Turkish Ministry of Commerce.
The war between Israel and Palestinian Hamas has shattered the normalization of Turkish-Israeli relations begun in 2022 after a decade of estrangement.
President Erdogan, one of the most critical voices of Israel’s war in the Gaza Strip, has repeatedly called Israel a “terrorist state” and said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “has surpassed Hitler.
Mr. Erdogan, who recalled the Turkish ambassador to Tel Aviv at the beginning of November, at the time considered it impossible to “completely break” with Israel.
But criticism has intensified in Türkiye in recent weeks against continued trade with Israel.
According to analysts, this anger contributed to the historic debacle of President Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP, Islamo-conservative) in the local elections held at the end of March.
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan announced on Wednesday that Turkey would join South Africa’s legal action against Israel at the International Court of Justice.