Iran's Raisi, Erdogan pledge to contain Gaza violence

ANKARA: Turkiye President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Wednesday that he and visiting Iran’s counterpart Ebrahim Raisi agreed on the need to avert the Israel-Hamas war from engulfing the entire Middle East region.

But Raisi countered that it was important for all countries to cut off trade with Israel — an apparent reference to Turkiye’s steadfast refusal to do so that underscored tensions in Ankara’s ties with Tehran.

The Iran president was paying his first official visit to Turkey since his 2021 election for talks originally aimed at ironing out a raft of problems between the historically close but uneasy neighbours.

The trip was delayed twice by the rapid escalation of the war in Gaza and a brutal bomb attack in Iran claimed by Islamic State group jihadists that killed 89 people earlier this month.

Erdogan told a joint media appearance in Ankara that the two leaders agreed on the need to contain the violence in Gaza and to step up their fight against “terrorism”.

“We agreed on the importance of avoiding steps that would further threaten the security and stability of our region,” Erdogan said.

Shipping disruptions

Raisi arrived in Turkiye less than a day after the United States and Britain conducted a new wave of joint air strikes against Huthis in Yemen in response to the rebels’ attacks on Red Sea shipping lanes.

Several shipping firms have directed traffic away from the Red Sea and started using a longer route around the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa as a security precaution.

The steps have disrupted trade and threatened global supply chains.

Raisi said he believed that the Palestinians in Gaza had already “won” the war against Israel because they were fighting more than 100 days into the conflict.

‘Cutting vital arteries’

Turkiye’s Erdogan depicts Hamas as legitimately elected “liberators” and not the “terrorist” organisation it has been called across the Western world.

He has compared Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Adolf Hitler for pursuing an offensive that has killed more than 25,000 people — mostly women, children and adolescents — according to the enclave’s Hamas-run health ministry.

Raisi stressed in his public remarks that it was essential for all nations to “limit their relationship with the Zionist regime”.

“We have no doubt that measures should be taken to deter the Zionist regime and its atrocities,” Raisi said.

“Certainly, cutting the vital arteries of the Zionist regime, and political and economic relations can be effective in forcing the Zionist regime to end all these atrocities.”