Responding to Erdogan’s threats to Israel… Israeli Foreign Minister calls on NATO to expel Türkiye from its membership

Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz urged NATO on Monday to expel Türkiye from its membership after its president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, threatened that his country could invade Israel as it did in Libya and Nagorno-Karabakh in the past.

“In light of Turkish President Erdogan’s threats to invade Israel and his dangerous rhetoric, Foreign Minister Israel Katz has instructed diplomats… to urgently contact all NATO members and call for condemnation of Türkiye and demand its expulsion from the alliance,” the Foreign Ministry said.

“We must be very strong so that Israel cannot do these ridiculous things to Palestine… Just as we entered Karabakh and Libya, we may do something similar with them,” Erdogan, a fierce critic of Israel’s war on Hamas in Gaza, said in a speech on Sunday.

“Erdogan is following in Saddam Hussein’s footsteps and threatening to attack Israel… He should remember what happened there and how it ended,” Katz said in the statement.

“Türkiye, which hosts the Hamas headquarters responsible for terrorist attacks on Israel, has become a member of the Iranian axis of evil, along with Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis in Yemen,” he added.

Relations between Israel and Türkiye, once close regional allies, have been deteriorating for more than a decade.

Bilateral trade has weathered many diplomatic storms, running into billions of dollars a year, but Türkiye said this month it would halt all trade with Israel until the war ended and aid flowed unhindered into Gaza.

For his part, the President of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, Ersin Tatar, condemned Katz’s vile statements against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

This came in a condemnation letter he published on Monday, in response to statements made by Katz in which he insulted President Erdogan.

Tatar described the statements of Israeli officials against President Erdogan as crossing the line.

He stressed that it’s unacceptable for Israeli officials, who have continued since last October to kill civilians without distinguishing between children and the elderly, to attack President Erdogan, who always stands by the oppressed.

He considered Katz’s statements about President Erdogan to be “an attempt to cover up the crimes against humanity that his country commits almost daily”.

He concluded the letter by calling on the international community to stop the genocide committed by Israel against the Palestinian people.