Turkey's president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has had a flurry of phone calls with regional leaders since the Palestinian unrest erupted last week, urging the world and Muslim nations in particular to take efficient action against Israel’s attacks on Al-Aqsa Mosque, Jerusalem and Palestinian homes.
According to Erdogan’s communication chief Fahrettin Altun, it was Erdogan’s efforts that managed to draw the attention of all international organizations, especially the UN, and governments around the world to the state terror practiced by Israel.
Erdogan, however, has long lost any leverage to influence Israel, a former ally of Turkey, and his old Arab friends are not exactly dying to listen to his pro-Palestinian bluster. Ankara’s ability to influence Palestinian factions has not lived up to expectations either, despite its close ties with Hamas.
The efficiency of Ankara’s diplomacy on the Palestinian question is open to argument, as the escalation in the Holy Land did help it break its diplomatic isolation.
Turkey needs to iron out the problems in its foreign relations as much as possible, maintain at least decent ties with all regional countries and build up trust in its interlocutors that it does not have a different or ideological agenda behind the curtain.
The Turkish-Egyptian talks in Cairo have yet to produce tangible results, and Cavusoglu’s trip to Riyadh does not appear to have been very promising.
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