Turkey, Honduras Recall Ambassadors From Israel
ISTANBUL (Dispatches) – Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Saturday he was breaking off contact with Zionist prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu due to the occupying regime’s actions in Gaza.
“Netanyahu is no longer someone we can talk to. We have written him off,” Turkish media quoted Erdogan as saying.
Erdogan’s remarks came a week after the occupying regime said it was “re-evaluating” its relations with Ankara because of Turkey’s increasingly heated statements about the Zionist regime’s onslaught on Gaza.
The occupying regime had earlier withdrawn all diplomats from Turkey and other regional countries as a “security precaution”.
Erdogan said Saturday that Turkey was not breaking off diplomatic relations with the occupying regime.
“Completely severing ties is not possible, especially in international diplomacy,” Erdogan said.
He said MIT intelligence agency chief Ibrahim Kalin was spearheading Turkey’s efforts to try and mediate an end to the war.
“Ibrahim Kalin is talking to the Israeli side. Of course, he is also negotiating with Palestine and Hamas,” Erdogan said.
But he said Netanyahu bore the primary responsibility for the violence and had “lost the support of his own citizens”.
“What he needs to do is take a step back and stop this,” Erdogan said.
Honduras Recalls Ambassador
Meanwhile, Honduras on Friday became the latest Latin American country to recall its ambassador to the occupied territories for consultations as it condemned “genocide” and other serious violations of international law in the Gaza Strip.
The Central American country’s Foreign Affairs Minister Eduardo Enrique Reina said on X, formerly Twitter, that President Xiomara Castro had decided to immediately recall the ambassador in light of “the serious humanitarian situation the civilian Palestinian population is suffering in the Gaza Strip.”
Honduras is the latest leftist-led Latin American government to take diplomatic steps to express its disapproval of the Zionist regime’s expanded offensive.
Bolivia’s government severed diplomatic relations with the occupying regime on Tuesday, accusing it of carrying out “crimes against humanity” in Gaza. Chile and Colombia also recalled their own ambassadors to the occupied territories as they criticized the Zionist regime’s offensive.
Furthermore, Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said during a trip to South Korea “What I am seeing unfolding at the moment isn’t just self-defense; it resembles something more approaching revenge, and that’s not where we should be.”
Ireland’s stance on the conflict has sometimes been at odds with its Western allies.