Hakan Fidan believes Trump would attend Nato summit due to \u201cpersonal respect\u201d for President Erdogan
\n Ankara
\nIsrael \u201ccannot live without an enemy\u201d and its government is now trying to portray Turkiye as one, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said on Monday.
\n\u201cAfter Iran, Israel cannot live without an enemy,\u201d Fidan said in a televised interview with the state-run Anadolu news agency.
\n\u201cWe see that not only Netanyahu\u2019s administration but also some figures in the opposition \u2014 though not all \u2014 are seeking to declare Turkiye the new enemy,\u201d he said.
\n\u201cThis is a new development in Israel… turning into a state strategy,\u201d he added.
\nTensions between Turkiye and Israel have steadily escalated since the Gaza war erupted following Hamas\u2019s October 7, 2023, attack in Israel.
\nThe dispute entered a new phase over the weekend after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned his US counterpart Donald Trump of \u201cpossible provocations and sabotage\u201d that could jeopardise an initial ceasefire arrangement in the US-Israeli war on Iran.
\nPrime Minister Shehbaz Sharif announced the two-week ceasefire between Tehran and Washington on April 8, ending the six-week war that began on February 28, when the US launched a joint bombing campaign with Israel against Iran.
\nFollowing President Erdogan\u2019s warning about possible sabotage of the ceasefire, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed that Israel would continue to confront Tehran and its regional allies.
\nIn response, Turkiye said that Netanyahu\u2019s current objective was \u201cto undermine ongoing peace negotiations and continue his expansionist policies in the region\u201d.<\/p>\n
Nato urged to reset ties with Trump
\nDuring the same interview, the Turkish foreign minister said that North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) allies should use their July summit in Ankara to reset ties with US President Donald Trump and prepare for a potential reduction of US involvement in the alliance.
\nFidan said that Turkiye believed Trump would attend the Nato leaders\u2019 summit on July 7-8 due to his \u201cpersonal respect\u201d for President Erdogan, but added he understood Trump was otherwise reluctant to come to the meeting.
\nTrump has criticised Nato for years and last week threatened to pull the United States out of the alliance over European members\u2019 refusal to send ships to unblock the Strait of Hormuz near Iran.
\nThat compounded friction within the bloc over his earlier plans to acquire Greenland.
\nFidan said that allies had long considered Trump\u2019s criticisms to be rhetoric, but were now planning around the possibility of reduced US involvement and ramping up their own defensive capacities.
\n\u201cNato countries need to turn this Ankara Summit into an opportunity to put ties with the United States on a systematic basis,\u201d he said.
\n\u201cIf there will be a US withdrawal from some Nato mechanisms, there needs to be a plan and programme to phase this out so nobody is left in the open,\u201d he added.
\nNato Secretary General Mark Rutte has said he understood Trump\u2019s frustrations with the alliance, but that the \u201clarge majority of European nations\u201d had been helpful to Washington\u2019s war effort in Iran.
\nA senior White House official told Reuters last week that Trump, as part of his frustration with Nato, had also considered the option of removing some US troops from Europe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hakan Fidan believes Trump would attend Nato summit due to \u201cpersonal respect\u201d for President Erdogan Ankara Israel \u201ccannot live without an enemy\u201d and its government is now trying to portray Turkiye as one, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said on Monday. \u201cAfter Iran, Israel cannot live without an enemy,\u201d Fidan said in a televised interview […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":541610,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-541681","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n