Turkey's Erdogan says cancelling plans to visit Israel over 'inhumane' war against Hamas
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Transcript
00:00 Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says he's cancelling plans to visit Israel because
00:06 of its, in his words, "inhumane war" in Gaza. We're joined now by Jasper Mortimer in Sirte
00:14 in Turkey. Jasper, can you give us a bit of the background to this statement that Erdogan
00:22 made today? Yes. Israel's attacks on Gaza have provoked
00:26 a storm of indignation in Turkey. There have been demonstrations outside the Israeli embassy
00:32 in Ankara, outside the Israeli consulate in Istanbul, and the demonstrators have been
00:39 accusing President Erdogan of not doing enough against Israel. They want him to throw the
00:47 Israeli ambassador out of the country. And in the past 13 years, the Israeli ambassador
00:53 to Turkey has twice gone home. Now, these demonstrators are Erdogan's voters. And so
01:00 what Erdogan is trying to do in today's statement to his parliamentary caucus is to condemn
01:08 Israel, to take steps against Israel, such as cancelling his trip there, to do everything
01:15 to accept, actually break diplomatic relations with Israel. It was significant that today
01:22 he said Turkey had no problem with Israelis, no problem with the Israeli state, but their
01:29 government's attacks on Gaza must stop. And in the same vein, on Saturday, Erdogan's party
01:38 is convening a mass rally in Istanbul in support of the Palestinians. And Erdogan will address
01:46 that rally. I think we have a sound bite of him as well, Jasper. He also said that he
01:54 would not qualify Hamas as a terrorist organization. I think we can listen to some of what he said.
02:03 Hamas is not a terrorist organization. It's a group of liberators and Mujahideen fighting
02:11 to protect their land and their citizens.
02:20 So that was Erdogan speaking. Now, Jasper, while we have you on the line, there is a
02:25 second not quite unrelated development in Turkey's attitude to Sweden's membership of
02:35 NATO. Can you tell us what's going on? There's been a development on that.
02:38 Yes. On Monday, Erdogan sent a bill to the parliament for the ratification of Sweden's
02:46 accession to NATO. It's now before the parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee. But Erdogan's party
02:52 and its allies have a majority in parliament. So there's no doubt that that bill will pass.
03:00 It's a major goal of Turkey's foreign policy at the moment to persuade the U.S. Senate
03:08 to approve the sale of F-16 fighter bombers to Turkey. President Joe Biden has approved
03:15 the purchase, Turkey's purchase of those fighter bombers. But U.S. senators have been holding
03:21 it up because they're accusing Turkey of blocking Sweden's accession to NATO. So he's going
03:29 to get the NATO ratification through parliament. And after that, it will only be Hungary of
03:38 NATO's membership that hasn't ratified Sweden's accession.
03:45 And at the same time, Erdogan knows that if he were to break relations with Israel, that
03:54 would also risk alienating the U.S. senators whose votes he now needs.