Do international powers reject Turkey's role in Palestine?

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan reiterated his support for the Palestinian cause and described the Israeli aggression on Gaza as terrorism (Al Jazeera)

ISTANBUL — With the announcement of the details of the humanitarian truce in the Gaza Strip and its entry into force on Friday morning as a result of Qatari-Egyptian-American efforts, some wondered about the nature and details of the Turkish role in the truce industry.

While Turkish government and ruling party officials stress the importance of Turkey's role, opponents say there are many reasons why Ankara has not been able to operate effectively in the current war, while analysts argue that Western powers reject increasing Turkish influence in Palestine.

In this context, Turkish Justice and Development Party MP Hassan Turan warned against ignoring "Turkey's leading position on the Palestinian cause, which his country has maintained towards the first Muslim qibla and ancestral inheritance, and for which it paid the price."

Turan, who is also the head of the Turkish-Palestinian parliamentary friendship group, said that "Turkish diplomacy, through President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has taken an advanced position contrary to NATO from the heart of Germany, and in other international forums in defense of Palestine, and our Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan announced that Israel is a terrorist organization and that there are thieves in Palestine, not Israeli settlers."

Speaking to Al Jazeera Net, Turan stressed, "Thus, Turkey has developed new terms that contributed to its support for the Palestinian cause in the international arena."

On the efforts of negotiation and truce, he said that "there is no table in the region without Turkey, and a table in which there is no Turkey with weight and reliable position is an incomplete and worn table," adding, "If Turkey does not exist directly, it is present with its positions and ideas indirectly."

Turan revealed that days before the truce, many countries came to his country on the exchange of prisoners, and sent messages to the Turkish president, continuing, "After that, our esteemed president mobilized and directed the competent authorities in our country and discussed what can be done regarding the exchange of prisoners through Qatar and Egypt, and later during the meetings of the American, Israeli and Egyptian delegations in Qatar, an agreement was reached on the exchange of prisoners and a ceasefire for 4 days."

MP Turan warned, "It is useless to ignore Turkey's international effort for the Palestinian cause, and to move to a stage where Turkey does not have any role in the Palestinian cause," considering that "such allegations come to divert the attention of world public opinion from Turkey's active and leading role in the Palestinian cause, and to distort the role that Turkey is currently playing."

Causes of failure

In this context, Sima Silkin On, a member of the Turkish parliament for the opposition Future Party, said that Turkey "has made a great effort to achieve a ceasefire since the seventh of last October, while underlining positions that remind everyone that the root of the problem goes back to the deep past and its interactions," stressing that "in our country, standing by Palestine in its just cause is a national reaction and a state policy, independent of parties and practical and temporal details."

Speaking to Al Jazeera Net, the Turkish parliamentarian pointed out that recently witnessed "Israeli efforts to achieve gains and popular acceptance in the region through diplomacy, and concluded with failure and disappointment," continuing that "Turkish media institutions focus on following Israel and exposing its lies, and this contributes to the Israeli side's sense of negativity towards Turkey and its expected roles."

She explained that one of the reasons for what she described as "the failure of Turkey's attempts" to become an active party at the table in the ceasefire process is that "Turkey's position on the US presence in the region was the strongest, but Turkey's intervention - as a member of NATO while holding a position completely contrary to the orientation and members of NATO - would overturn equations that are barely present and exist."

In addition to the previous reasons, according to the parliamentarian, the fragility of the Turkish economy is one of the most important reasons - and perhaps the most important reasons - that led to this, expecting that "the active and main role of Turkey will be in the reconstruction of Gaza after reaching a permanent ceasefire."

Dead ends

For his part, Turkish writer and political analyst Ramadan Bursa confirmed that the answer to the question of the Turkish role in the humanitarian truce in Gaza accurately describes the battle of the Al-Aqsa flood, explaining that "the battle is not a war between Gaza and the Israeli occupation regime, as the occupation regime believes that controlling Gaza is the first step to control Greater Israel / the new Middle East."

"America, Israel and other Western countries reject the increase of Turkish influence in the Palestinian territories, and Israel and the United States do not want Turkey - which has Ottoman historical roots - to play an effective role in the Palestinian cause by acting as a mediator or guarantor," Bursa said.

Speaking to Al Jazeera Net, Bursa believes that the introduction of the project or plan guarantor as a project and a new system to deal with the Palestinian issue, on the words of the Turkish Foreign Minister in the first days of the Al-Aqsa flood, caused concern to many parties who concluded that the Turkish project is what he worked on and seeks to apply to be an alternative to other international projects.

"The proposal of the Turkish guarantor was discussed in the Western press and diplomatic chambers, and diplomatic sources have stated that there are some reservations about Turkey's proposal, especially by Western countries," he said.

The political analyst explained that the idea of the Turkish guarantor shows that Turkey has a plan and deliberate paths regarding the Palestinian issue, which upset the West, especially with Turkey's defense of Hamas and its refusal to accept the idea of describing it as terrorism, concluding by saying, "The real problem is that Turkey is not asked or not allowed to be active in the Palestinian cause."

On the seventh of this month, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan announced that his country had put forward the idea of a system in which it would be a guarantor for the parties to establish a lasting peace in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Source : Al Jazeera