For a year, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has thundered against Netanyahu, the “butcher of Gaza“, “war criminal“, author of a “genocide“. As a fervent defender of Palestine, he rails against the inaction of the international community. But he is much more discreet on Lebanon. This difference in treatment on the part of Ankara in the face of the two wars that Israel is waging is explained by the complicated relations it maintains with Iran and its “proxies” in the region, first and foremost the Lebanese Hezbollah.
Ismaël Haniyeh, the leader of Hamas, was a brother. When his death was announced, three days of national mourning were declared in Türkiye. Here, Hamas is not considered a terrorist organization, but as a liberation movement: it has offices in Türkiye and the Turkish authorities regularly meet its representatives. The Turkish president also wanted to be a mediator in the conflict in Gaza, but his feverish outbreaks against Netanyahu “genocidal who will pay for it” disqualified him from playing this role of peacemaker.
The reaction is completely different in the case of Lebanon. During the assassination of Hassan Nasrallah, the president took a few hours before reacting and he did not name the leader of Hezbollah, just castigating the aggression against a sovereign country, Lebanon, and worrying about the regional repercussions. of the extension of the conflict. No mourning either.
In fact, the weakening of Shiite Iran does not displease Sunni Turkey. Iran is its rival in the region. Turkey and Iran were also on opposing sides during the civil war in Syria. Turkish troops have repeatedly fought members of Hezbollah who came to defend President Assad, while Turkey supported the opposition.
This war had very direct consequences on neighboring Turkey. Ankara has not forgotten that it was Iran’s support for Syrian President Assad that pushed more than three million Syrian nationals into exile in Türkiye. Their presence weighs more and more on the population and, in a context of exacerbated economic crisis, it remains an electoral issue. Turkey is also sending them back by the thousands under the guise of voluntary returns. Suffice to say that if Turkey denounces the violation of the sovereignty of Lebanon and the massacres committed there, it refrains from providing its sympathy or support to Hezbollah, preferring to speak of the Lebanese people. Ankara also fears an extension of the conflict among its neighbors: Iraq, but especially Syria where the Israeli army is intensifying its strikes against Iranian interests. With the risk of a new wave of refugees.
Sharing three land borders with Iran, Iraq and Syria, Turkey is trying to conduct tough diplomacy. It aims to be an island of stability in a troubled region and insists on its priority: resolving conflicts through diplomacy and not war. She therefore walks a fine line of balance: denouncing the war in Lebanon and Israel’s actions in the region, without however supporting the enemy of the Jewish state, Iran. But the risk of escalation between Iran and Israel worries him to the greatest extent. The head of Iranian diplomacy must also come to Türkiye to discuss it.
