ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Saturday that Islamic countries should form an alliance against what he called the “growing threat of expansionism” from Israel, drawing a rebuke from Israel’s foreign minister.
He made the comments after describing what Palestinian and Turkish officials said was the killing by Israeli troops of a Turkish-American woman participating in a protest Friday against settlement expansion in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
“The only step that will stop Israeli arrogance, Israeli banditry and Israeli state terrorism is the alliance of Islamic countries,” Erdogan said at an event for Islamic schools near Istanbul.
He said recent steps Turkey has taken to improve relations with Egypt and Syria are aimed at “forming a line of solidarity against the growing threat of expansionism,” which he said also threatened Lebanon and Syria.
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said in a statement that Erdogan’s statement was “a dangerous lie and incitement,” and that the Turkish leader has been working for years with Iran to undermine the region’s moderate Arab regimes.
Erdogan hosted Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in Ankara this week and they discussed the Gaza war and ways to further repair their long-frozen ties in what was the first presidential visit in 12 years.
Ties between them began to thaw in 2020 as Turkey began diplomatic efforts to ease tensions with foreign regional rivals, including the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.
Erdogan said in July that Turkey would extend an invitation to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad “at any time” for possible talks to restore relations between the two neighboring countries, which severed ties in 2011 following the outbreak of the Syrian civil war.
Israel’s military said after Friday’s incident that it was investigating reports that a female foreign national “was killed as a result of shots fired in the area. The details of the incident and the circumstances under which she was hit are under review.”
There was no immediate comment on Friday’s incident from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office.
(Reporting by Daren Butler, Editing by Timothy Heritage)