Turkey and Palestine maintain strong ties despite US pressures
Turkey is proving to be a strong ally to Palestine despite being a member of NATO and having a long-standing military relationship with Israel, and Palestinian officials are trying to use this relationship to counterpressure the Trump administration and Israel.
When the United Nations General Assembly overwhelmingly upgraded Palestine to a nonmember observer state in December 2012, the foreign minister of Turkey did something unusual. Ahmet Davutoglu, who was moved to tears during a visit to the Gaza Strip in 2012, got up and approached Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and embraced him to the thunderous clapping of the UN delegates.
Turkey, the only majority Muslim country that is part of the US-led NATO alliance, has been a staunch supporter of Palestine and the Palestinians. It has supported both Hamas and the PLO and has not wavered in providing support, especially to Jerusalem. Turkish tourists are among the biggest single group of visitors that bring in revenue for Palestinian-run hotels and restaurants in Jerusalem.
On May 3, newly appointed Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh met Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and delivered a letter from Abbas. Sources in the Ramallah office of the prime minister told Al-Monitor that the two issues mentioned in the letter and discussed during the meeting were the US peace plan and the economic situation in the Palestinian territories.
“I met with President Erdogan and our positions are totally in sync regarding the challenges facing the Palestinian cause,” Shtayyeh reflected in a Facebook message May 8. He continued, “Any initiative that doesn’t meet the minimum rights of our people will fail. I also explained to him [Erdogan] the difficult economic position we are facing as a result of the Israeli theft of our money.”
