Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on Wednesday that Turkey no longer does as much trade with Israel as it used to in the past, the state news agency Anadolu reported.
A Deutsche Welle reporter asked the president during a joint press conference with his German counterpart, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, on Wednesday how he explained the contradiction between denouncing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for “using Nazi methods” and maintaining extensive trade relations with Israel at the same time.
“Turkey no longer does as much trade with Israel, that chapter is closed,” Erdoğan replied and called on “our German friends” to bear in mind that the number of victims from the Israeli attacks on Gaza has reached 45,000.
Anti-Israel sentiment has increased in Turkey since Israel bombed the Gaza Strip in retaliation for an unprecedented attack by the militant group Hamas in southern Israel on October 7, which killed around 1,200 people and took some 250 hostages.
As of April 6, 133 hostages remained in captivity in the Gaza Strip, 129 of whom had been abducted on October, according to Israel’s public broadcaster Kan.
According to the Gaza Ministry of Health, the death toll in the Gaza Strip has now exceeded 34,400.
Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) government, which has come under increasing criticism for continuing to trade with Israel despite the war on Gaza, recently imposed trade restrictions on Israel. This move was interpreted as insufficient and overdue in light of the massive casualties Israel’s attacks have caused for the people of Gaza.
Six months after the start of Israel’s war on Gaza, the Turkish government responded to public criticism by imposing restrictions on trade with Tel Aviv on April 9.
The trade restrictions were a reaction to Israel’s actions in the Gaza Strip and the blockade of Turkish attempts to airlift aid to the region.
Nihat Zeybekçi, deputy chairman of the AKP, spoke in favor of continuing trade relations with Israel in a speech at an event in İzmir last week, stating that they would benefit Turkey and should be considered independently of the conflict.
“We condemn Israel’s massacre of Muslims. But in terms of trade, Israel is an important partner with whom we have a free trade agreement,” Zeybekçi told the audience, earning criticism for his remarks.
The AKP and its ally, the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), last week rejected a parliamentary motion proposed by the opposition Felicity Party (SP) to investigate the effectiveness of the trade restrictions Turkey recently imposed on Israel and the negative consequences of the country’s continued trade with Israel for the people of Gaza.
The trade between Turkey and Israel, which is partly conducted by individuals close to President Erdoğan despite his anti-Israel rhetoric, was first exposed by investigative journalist Metin Cihan in late November. Since then, Cihan has been reporting on trade between the two countries, relying on official statistics and websites on maritime traffic, all of which are publicly available.
Erdoğan, who has long marketed himself in the Muslim world as a champion of Palestinian rights and a fierce critic of Israel, has repeatedly accused Israel of being a “terrorist state” and of committing “genocide” due to Israel’s ongoing attacks on the Palestinian enclave in Gaza.
Despite the ongoing conflict and Erdoğan’s condemnation, Israel remains an important trading partner for Turkey, ranking 13th on Turkey’s export list in 2023. Trade between the two countries amounted to 5.42 billion dollars last year and accounted for 2.1 percent of Turkey’s total exports, a decrease from 7 billion dollars in 2022.
