President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan called for comprehensive weapons sanctions against Israel to put pressure on the country, which is currently wreaking havoc on Palestine and Lebanon, as he met with the Secretary-General of the Arab League in Ankara on Wednesday.
Erdoğan and Ahmed Aboul Gheit discussed global and regional developments, including Israel’s attacks on Lebanon, the Presidential Communications Directorate said.
The president told the Arab League chief that Israel is trying to spread the flames of conflict across the region as it aims to occupy Palestinian lands to leave them without a homeland.
He continued by saying that Türkiye continues its initiatives to hold Israel accountable for its crimes, as he highlighted the importance of an extensive arms embargo to increase pressure on Tel Aviv.
Erdoğan also told Aboul Gheit that the tensions in Syria, Libya, Somalia and Ethiopia must be halted immediately and that Türkiye wants peace and stability in these countries.
Türkiye, fiercely critical of Israel’s brutal offensive in Gaza, which it and others say amounts to genocide, has been on alert about a possible regional spillover of the conflict with Israel’s persistent attacks on Lebanon and Iran’s retaliation.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has warned Netanyahu’s administration may very well target Türkiye next. "The Israeli administration, which acts upon its delusion of the 'Promised Land,' will set its sights on our homeland after Palestine and Lebanon," he said.
Israel has mounted a huge air campaign in Lebanon against what it claims are Hezbollah targets since Sept. 23, killing more than 1,500 people and displacing more than a million people.
The aerial campaign is an escalation from a year of cross-border warfare between Israel and Hezbollah since the start of its genocidal offensive on the Gaza Strip, in which Israel has killed nearly 42,400 people, most of them women and children, since a Hamas attack last year.
It expanded the conflict on Oct. 1 by launching an incursion into southern Lebanon.
Israel’s brutal war has drawn international outrage and condemnation, but Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, have been platformed in international organizations like IPU and the U.N.