Foreign minister after Turkish embassy lowers flag for Haniyeh: ‘Erdogan is turning Turkey into a dictatorship’

Foreign Minister Israel Katz slams Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, after Ankara’s embassy in Tel Aviv lowered its flag to half mast today in honor of slain Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh.

“Erdogan is turning Turkey into a dictatorship just because of his support for the murderers and rapists of Hamas, against the stance of the entire free world,” he writes on X.

Katz also decries Turkey’s blocking of the Instagram social media network, reported earlier today, and disrupting a sports broadcast of the judo semifinal at the Paris Olympics between Israeli and Turkish judokas.

“Erdogan is taking a Turkish state with scientific, cultural, technological and economic capabilities and destroying it, eroding the legacy of Atatürk, who built a progressive and prosperous Turkey. Let’s hope for better days,” he adds.

.@RTErdogan is turning Turkey into a dictatorship just because of his support for the murderers and rapists of Hamas, against the stance of the entire free world.

He is blocking Instagram, with 57 million users in Turkey, cutting off sports broadcasts because an Israeli athlete… pic.twitter.com/5dpEhELf0C

— ישראל כ”ץ Israel Katz (@Israel_katz) August 2, 2024