PNN – Turkey’s recent economic decisions showed that the usual equation of “separation of politics from economy” is no longer the constant principle of Ankara-Tel Aviv relations, and political tensions will lead to inevitable economic consequences.
While the Gaza war had put the Turkish government on a difficult path for consecutive months, where it was under the pressure of domestic public opinion due to the continuation of economic relations with the Zionist regime, Erdogan’s cup of patience and conservatism finally ran out. And Ankara decided to suspend economic relations with Tel Aviv for an indefinite period.
The Ministry of Commerce of Turkey has announced that it has suspended all trade exchanges with the Zionist regime since last Thursday and has stopped all exports and imports to and from the occupied territories.
The ministry said in a statement: “Turkey will strictly and decisively implement these new measures until the government of Israel allows the uninterrupted and sufficient flow of humanitarian aid to Gaza.”
This is not Turkey’s first economic punishment against the Zionist regime, and last month, Ankara also banned the export of 54 items, including aircraft fuel, construction iron, flat steel, marble, ceramics, etc., to the occupied territories. Also, in the same period, Turkish Airlines canceled online booking of its flights to the occupied territories until March 2025.
Free Trade Agreement
Announcing the unilateral termination of Turkey’s economic relations with the Zionist regime was not an issue that Tel Aviv leaders could easily pass by and ignore. This act caused the anger and worry of the Zionists, and in the first reaction, Israel Gantz, the foreign minister of this regime, accused Ankara of violating the agreements.
“This is how the dictator behaves and ignores the interests of the Turkish people and Turkish businessmen and ignores international trade agreements,” Gantz said at Platform X.
Gantz said he “issued instructions to the State Department to work on finding alternatives to trade with Turkey, focusing on domestic production and imports from other countries.”
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The volume of trade relations between the two sides in 2023 is reported to be around 7 billion dollars, of which 5.42 billion dollars is the share of Turkish exports to the occupied territories and 1.5 billion dollars is the value of the export of Israeli products to Turkey. This figure will be around 9.5 billion dollars in 2022, which shows a noticeable decrease.
On the other hand, data from the Turkish Exporters Association indicate that Turkey’s exports to the Zionist regime decreased by 21.6 percent in the first quarter of 2024, two months after the start of the war in Gaza.
Data from the Turkish Exporters Association show that between 2011 and 2020, Turkey exported steel, automobile industry products, chemicals, cement, glass, ceramics, construction materials, furniture and paper, ready-made clothes, electricity and electronics to the Zionist regime.
The same data also indicates that Israel imported 3 billion 684 million dollars of cars and other types of vehicles from Turkey.
Another energy is the area of economic cooperation between the two sides during the years 2011 to 2020, according to which Tel Aviv imported 2 billion and 737 million dollars worth of crude oil from Turkey. On the other hand, jewelry has also had an important place among Türkiye’s export products to occupied Palestine.
Uneven losses
Certainly, the expansion of the volume of exchanges and economic and commercial cooperation between Turkey and the Zionist regime makes the emergence of harmful economic consequences for the merchants and businesses of both sides inevitable.
On the one hand, on the side of Turkey, which has enjoyed a positive trade balance in exports to the occupied territories as well as the West Bank and Gaza, the problem is that exporters are deprived of a market worth about 6 billion dollars.
In this regard, Mustafa Goltepe, head of the Turkish Exporters Union, said: There are companies that produce between 70 and 80 percent of their exports to Israel. If the export ban continues for a long time, they will face a big problem.
Turkey is currently one of the largest trade partners of the Zionist regime, and according to the report of the Times of Israel, the ban imposed by Turkey on the Israeli construction industry is expected, even when this sector has been severely affected by the Gaza war.
According to this Hebrew newspaper, Israel imports about 70 percent of its iron construction materials and about a third of its cement needs from Turkey for use in local construction and the construction industry. Israel is also one of the main destinations of Turkish steel.
The end of the economic honeymoon
In the regulation of relations between Turkey and the Zionist regime, this component that the calm coast of economic cooperation should stay away from the raging waves of the turbulent sea of political tensions has always been an inseparable and constant part of the policies of both sides.
This situation had caused that even severe political crises and hostile relations did not hinder the growing and prosperous business of both sides during the past years.