Al-Monitor Turkey: Erdogan raises the stakes with Israel
Greetings from Ankara,
Here in the capital, we woke up this morning to a landscape blanketed in snow. Aside from this surprise, it was a relatively slow news week. The fluctuating tensions between Israel and Turkey over Syria set the tone, with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan raising the stakes today. Read more below for a wrap-up of the week's domestic developments.
Wishing you all a fabulous weekend ☃️
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Leading this week
Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan delivers a speech during the opening ceremony of the 4th edition of the Antalya Diplomacy Forum in Antalya, on April 11, 2025. (AFP via Getty Images)
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday issued a warning to Israel amid growing tensions over Syria, urging the Jewish state not to misinterpret Turkey’s approach.
“We do not see Syria’s … security as separate from our own,” Erdogan said in a televised speech. “The Syrian people have endured enough pain, oppression and war. Those who intend to make our Syrian brothers experience these again should make their calculations accordingly.”
"No one should misunderstand or misinterpret our stance to resolve issues through dialogue,” he added.
Background: Erdogan’s warning came after Turkish and Israeli officials held the first round of talks on Wednesday in Azerbaijan aimed at establishing a deconfliction mechanism to prevent clashes between the two countries' militaries in Syria. Last week, Israeli airstrikes on nearly a dozen military sites in the war-torn country led to a spike in tensions between the two regional powers. Among the targets were a strategic military base in Homs known as the T4 base and Palmyra airport, where Ankara was reportedly planning to deploy Turkish drones and troops.
Despite the heated rhetoric, both sides have expressed a desire to avoid further conflict. The talks followed de-escalatory messages from Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan and senior Israeli officials stating their mutual desire to prevent direct confrontation in Syria.
Turkish and Israeli officials are expected to meet again next week for a second round of negotiations in Azerbaijan, after little progress was made in the first round, according to Israeli state broadcaster Kan.
Positions: Israeli airstrikes last week came amid reports that Turkey was planning to deploy troops to military bases in and around Syria’s Palmyra region, located roughly 155 miles north of Damascus. “[Israel] made it unequivocally clear that any change in the deployment of foreign forces in Syria — particularly the establishment of Turkish bases in Palmyra — is a red line,” an unnamed Israeli diplomatic source told the Israeli press on Thursday after the deconfliction talks.
Following the tense relations between Turkey and Israel over the Gaza conflict, Israel views any potential increase in Turkish military presence in Syria, where Islamists hold power, as a direct threat to its national security interests along its northern borders.
During his visit to the White House on Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu echoed his country’s concerns. “We don’t want to see Syria being used by anyone, including Turkey, as a base for an attack on Israel,” he said, sitting alongside US President Donald Trump.
Ankara, in turn, says that its growing military footprint in Syria — a country with which it shares over 560 miles of border — is aimed at ensuring the stability of its neighbor in a bid to safeguard Turkey's security interests.
It's possible that Erdogan was emboldened to raise the stakes in his warnings toward Israel because of Trump’s recent remarks, in which he praised Erdogan alongside Netanyahu, urging the Israeli leader to be "reasonable" when it comes to dealing with Ankara in Syria.
“We are in consensus with all influential actors in the region, including preserving Syria’s territorial integrity and stability,” Erdogan said Monday. “We are in very close dialogue with all influential actors, including Mr. Trump and Mr. [Vladimir] Putin.”
Expert view: Alper Coskun, a retired Turkish diplomat and current US-based senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, is optimistic about the prospects of the establishment of a deconfliction line between Israel and Turkey. “The start of the deconfliction talks shows that reason is still prevailing on both Turkish and Israeli sides,” Coskun told me.
“A confrontation in Syria is not in the interest of either side, and both have already expressed this. Thus, I believe rationality will prevail.”
Read more:
- For more details on Israel-Turkey tensions, read my joint report with Rina Bassist.
- For a deep dive into Turkey's agenda in Syria, read Barin Kayaoglu's latest analysis.
Other top stories
Journalism under detention: Two of the most prominent Turkish journalists, Timur Soykan and Murat Agirel, were released on house arrest on Friday after their detention during dawn raids in Istanbul on Thursday.
Turkish prosecutors accuse the pair of "blackmailing" an individual they had approached in a journalistic capacity. But critics of the Turkish government say the detentions aimed to silence the two leading journalists at a time when authorities are tightening their grip over the media following the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu last month.
Many in Turkey believe Imamoglu’s arrest was similarly politically motivated, aiming to eliminate a key rival of Erdogan ahead of the next presidential election. Imamoglu's detention has led to nationwide mass protests and calls for economic boycotts.
Among the more than 1,000 people, mostly university students, who were arrested over their alleged involvement in the protests and boycotts, some 220 of them have been released from jail as of Friday.
New step in peace talks: Erdogan on Thursday met with two pro-Kurdish lawmakers who are playing key roles in talks with imprisoned Kurdish militant leader Abdullah Ocalan as part of the Turkish government's efforts to find a peaceful end to the country’s Kurdish conflict. It marked the first meeting of its kind since 2012.
The dialogue process between the Turkish government and Ocalan is aimed at convincing the militant leader’s Kurdistan Workers Party to lay down arms and dissolve itself against the backdrop of a 40-year-old armed insurgency for Kurdish self-rule inside Turkey.
The meeting came as some questioned whether widespread outrage over Imamoglu's arrest might derail peace talks. But defying such expectations, the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM) struck a strongly optimistic tone.
“The meeting took place in an extremely positive, constructive, productive and hopeful atmosphere regarding the future,” it said in a statement. “At this point, we are honored to share with the entire country that we are more hopeful than we were yesterday.” For more, check out my story here.
Also on our radar
For insights on whether the Trump administration can prevent a potential collision course between Israel and Turkey in Syria, check out Jared Szuba's analysis.
As usual, don't miss Nazlan Ertan’s weekly newsletter, Al-Monitor Istanbul. For Istanbulites, Nazlan lists a series of indoor and outdoor activities each week. For those residing outside of the city, like me, she offers recommendations that provide deeper insights into Turkey’s cultural history.