Erdogan’s Upcoming Gaza Trip Presents Turkey with Dilemma
Semih Idiz considers the timing and possible consequences of the Turkish prime minister’s visit to Gaza in May.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan appears to be caught between a rock and a hard place. He has turned his long awaited but as yet unrealized visit to Gaza more or less into a matter of honor. He announced last week that the visit would finally take place at the end of May. Having declared a date, albeit vaguely, he is now under pressure to ensure the visit does not turn into a fiasco and alienate not just Washington and Israel, but also the Palestinian Authority (PA) and President Mahmoud Abbas.
Erdogan’s advisers are no doubt disturbed that the main objection to his Gaza visit is not coming from Israel — which is strongly opposed to the visit — but from Hamas’ rival Fatah, and the PA.
Azzam al-Ahmed, a member of the Fatah Central Committee and a close adviser to Abbas, was quoted by The Jerusalem Post on April 15, saying the PA believes Erdogan’s visit to the Gaza Strip would deepen Palestinian divisions. “Anyone who visits the Gaza Strip without coordination with the Palestinian Authority supports and deepens the split between the West Bank and Gaza Strip” Ahmed said. He added that Abbas was planning to visit Turkey soon, ostensibly to talk Erdogan out going to Gaza, although this has to be confirmed yet.
What compounds Erdogan’s dilemma is that Turkey’s consul general in Jerusalem, Sakir Torunlar, presented his credentials to Abbas on April 15 as the first fully fledged Turkish ambassador to the PA. Ankara would clearly not like to start off on the wrong foot with the Abbas administration, even if Erdogan and Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu’s Islamist sympathies have always rested with Hamas.
