Turkey has been one of the fiercest critics of Israel and defenders of Hamas since the outbreak of the Gaza war in October.
Iran’s plan to attack Israel in retaliation for the recent killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran should be harsh enough to force the Jewish state to “fall to its knees,” according to Turkey’s ambassador to Iran.
“Iran’s right to reply on this issue is reasonable,” Ambassador Hicabi Kırlangıç said in a new interview with Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency.
“We cannot tell Iran to be patient — ‘do not respond harshly; do not respond militarily.’ Iran seems determined on this issue, but we cannot predict how it will react. Time will tell.”
Kırlangıç was responding to a question regarding Turkey’s stance on whether and how Iran should respond to the assassination of Haniyeh, the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s political chief and overall leader.
“We do not know if it will be a military response, but the biggest answer is to respond in a way that makes the attacking countries [Israel and its Western allies] retreat and fall to their knees, which of course is the responsibility of not only Iran but all the countries in the region,” the ambassador said.
Haniyeh was killed in an explosion in Iran’s capital city on July 31. Iran has accused Israel of carrying out the assassination and vowed revenge, which, according to experts and Western officials, will likely take the form of a direct strike on the Jewish state.
The Israeli government has neither confirmed nor denied responsibility for Haniyeh’s death.
Iran is the chief international sponsor of Hamas, providing the terrorist group with weapons, funding, and training.
It is unclear when Iran will take action against Israel. On Tuesday, the spokesperson for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), an Iranian military force and internationally designated terrorist organization, revealed there could be a long wait.
“Time is in our favor, and the waiting period for this response could be long,” Alimohammad Naini said, according to Iranian state media. Naini added that “the enemy” should wait for a calculated response.
Meanwhile, Turkey has been one of the fiercest critics of Israel and defenders of Hamas since the outbreak of the Gaza war in October.
Earlier this month, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared Aug 2 a day of national mourning over the killing of Haniyeh.
The announcement came days after Erdogan made an explicit threat to invade Israel, leading Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz to call on NATO to expel Turkey, which has the alliance’s second largest military.
Turkey has reportedly blocked cooperation between NATO and Israel since October because of the war in Hamas-ruled Gaza and said the alliance should not engage with Israel as a partner until the conflict ends.
Erdogan’s comments were the latest in a recent wave of hostile moves targeting the Jewish state.
Late last month, for example, Turkey’s foreign ministry compared Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.
In May, the Turkish trade ministry said it had ceased all exports and imports to and from Israel.
The announcement came after Turkey imposed trade restrictions on Israeli exports over Israel’s ongoing war against Hamas in Gaza following the terrorist group’s Oct. 7 invasion of and massacre across the southern region of the Jewish state.
That followed Erdogan in March threatening to “send Netanyahu to Allah to take care of him, make him miserable, and curse him.” He previously accused Israel of operating “Nazi” concentration camps and compared Netanyahu with Hitler.
Weeks earlier, Erdogan said that Netanyahu was a “butcher” who would be tried as a “war criminal” over Israel’s defensive military operations in Gaza. He has also called Israel a “terror state.”
Turkey hosts senior Hamas officials and, together with Iran and Qatar, has provided a large portion of the Palestinian terrorist group’s budget.
Several Western and Arab states designate Hamas, an offshoot of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood, as a terrorist group.
However, Erdogan has defended Hamas terrorists as “resistance fighters” against what he described as an Israeli occupation of Palestinian land.
Israel withdrew all its troops and civilian settlers from Gaza in 2005.
Turkish-Israeli diplomatic relations have nosedived since the Hamas atrocities of Oct. 7, when the terrorist group that rules Gaza murdered 1,200 people in southern Israel and kidnapped over 250 others as hostages, launching the ongoing war in the Palestinian enclave.
During his interview published earlier this week, Kırlangıç lambasted Israel as “one of the most ruthless enemies” and condemned Western countries for supporting the Jewish state.
As for Iran’s response to Haniyeh’s death, the Turkish ambassador concluded the interview by urging patience and again indicating Turkey will not object to a harsh military attack on the Jewish state.
“I wish for patience. Iran is a country that makes decisions with patience, moderation, and perhaps will make the right decision. We can only respect it.”
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