Erdogan Says Turkey Could ‘Enter’ Israel Like It Did in Libya and Nagorno-Karabakh

On Sunday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan appeared to threaten military intervention against Israel, saying Turkey could “enter” Israel as it did in Libya and Nagorno-Karabakh.

“We must be very strong so that Israel can’t do these ridiculous things to Palestine. Just like we entered Karabakh, just like we entered Libya, we might do similar to them,” Erdogan said in a televised address. “There is no reason why we cannot do this … We must be strong so that we can take these steps.”

Starting in 2020, Turkey, a NATO member, began deploying military advisors and thousands of Syrian mercenaries to Libya to support the UN-backed Government of National Accord.

Turkey also strongly backed Azerbaijan’s 2020 assault on Nagorno-Karabakh by providing weapons and political support. The conflict ended in 2023 with Azerbaijan completing the ethnic cleansing of the over 100,000 ethnic Armenians who lived in Nagorno-Karabakh.

Turkey denied that it intervened directly in Nagorno-Karabakh, but during the 2020 war, there were allegations that Ankara sent mercenaries recruited from Syria to fight for Azerbaijan.

In response to Erdogan’s comments about intervening in Israel, Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz warned the Turkish leader could be the next Saddam Hussein, who was toppled and later executed following the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

“Erdogan follows in the footsteps of Saddam Hussein and threatens to attack Israel. Just let him remember what happened there and how it ended,” Katz wrote on X.