TURKEY PERSPECTIVE

Ankara, June 18, 2026. Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar announced on Thursday a complete break in contact with European Union High Representative for Foreign Policy Kaja Kallas through a post on the social network X. Turkish media, via the Anadolu Agency and the Daily Sabah newspaper, covered the event with documentary precision, highlighting the drivers of a diplomatic crisis rooted in months of accumulated tensions.

According to Turkish media outlets, Saar faults Kallas for having, during a visit to Mexico between May 20 and 22, compared in closed-door meetings Israel's treatment of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza to the apartheid policies of South Africa. Saar wrote that he had "no choice but to sever all contact with Ms. Kallas until she retracts the blood libel she has directed against Israel." He also accused the European official of acting "obsessively and with glaring injustice" toward the Israeli state. No immediate response emerged from Kallas's office.

The Anadolu Agency recalls that the rupture fits into a broader context: in November 2024, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza. Israel is also facing proceedings for genocide before the International Court of Justice, initiated by South Africa.

Daily Sabah notes that the EU had already in May 2026 sanctioned three individuals and four entities held responsible for "grave and systematic abuses of human rights against Palestinians in the West Bank." Saar had then firmly rejected these sanctions. The same newspaper underscores divisions within the EU: while some member states are highly critical of Israel, others maintain close ties with Tel Aviv.

In parallel, the Turkish newspaper documents Israeli territorial expansion: since 2023, Israel is reported to have extended its control over approximately 1,000 square kilometers in Gaza, southern Lebanon, and Syria, representing the largest expansion of its military control in decades. These zones are termed by Israel as "buffer zones" necessary for its security. More than 3 million people are estimated to have been displaced in Gaza and Lebanon within this framework.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is also cited: his annual report on children in armed conflict recorded 2,668 Palestinian children killed in Gaza in 2024, and he warned that Israeli settler groups could be placed on a global blacklist if violations continued in 2026. This context reinforces, according to Turkish media, the credibility of European criticisms and amplifies the symbolic weight of the apartheid comparison that Saar rejected.