President Ebrahim Raisi of Iran departed for Turkey on Wednesday, expected to hold in-person meetings with Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan on how best to support the jihadist terror group Hamas in its campaign of human rights atrocities against Israel.
Iran is the world’s premier state sponsor of terrorism and a top financial and ideological supporter of Hamas, the Gaza-based Sunni terrorist outlet responsible for the unprecedented atrocities against the Israeli population on October 7. Erdogan, an avowed Islamist, has repeatedly declared his support publicly, denying that Hamas is a “terrorist organization” and claiming that the group’s “resistance” against Israel – in the form of infanticide, gang-rape, mass slaughter of civilians in their homes, and other crimes against humanity – is legitimate.
Both Iran and Turkey celebrated the October 7 attacks, Tehran with a massive street party featuring chants of “death to America” and Ankara with a “Great Palestine Rally” reportedly featuring over 1 million people.
Shortly before taking off to Ankara on Wednesday, Raisi reportedly commended “Iran and Turkey’s common position” on Hamas and emphasized that his meetings with Erdogan would focus on opposing Israeli self-defense operations against the terrorists in Gaza.
“One of the important issues that worries all Muslims and awakes people in the world is the Palestine issue. Iran and Turkey’s common position is to support the resistance of the oppressed and powerful Palestinians,” Raisi said, according to the Iranian state-run outlet PressTV.
“Because of the support of the Americans and Westerners for the Zionist regime, we are still witnessing the killings of Palestinian women and children,” Raisi reportedly added, “But we are sure that the victory belongs to Palestine. And it will be annihilation of the Zionist regime [Israel].”
The Islamist dictatorship of Iran opposes the existence of a Jewish state on the land of Israel. It openly rejects the idea of a “two-state solution,” with Israel and a hypothetical “Palestine” co-existing.
“Israel is occupying the Palestinian land, and we believe that a two-state solution will not help to resolve the Palestinian issue,” Iranian Foreign Minister Amir Abdollahian declared in remarks in December.
To further the “annihilation” of Israel, Raisi reportedly told PressTV that he would discuss with Erdogan “cutting off the vital arteries of the Zionist regime.” PressTV did not clarify what kind of action – military, economic boycotts, etc. – that would entail. The most prominent campaign to “cut off the vital arteries” of Israel currently in vigor is the series of operations by the Houthi Shiite terrorist organization of Yemen to attack commercial ships transiting through the Red Sea. The Houthis claim that they are only attacking ships with ties to Israel, but have shot missiles and conducted drone attacks against seemingly random ships, triggering a mass chilling effect on ship traffic in the region and forcing companies to divert their ships around Africa’s Cape of Good Hope.
The Turkish Communications Directorate confirmed Raisi’s visit on Wednesday with significantly less belligerent language than Raisi’s.
“On the sidelines of the visit, the Eighth Meeting of the Türkiye-Iran High Level Cooperation Council will be held in Ankara under the chairmanship of President Erdogan and President Raisi of Iran,” a statement published on the Directorate’s Twitter account read, according to the Turkish state news agency Anadolu. “The two leaders are expected to exchange views on current regional and global issues, particularly the Israeli attacks on Gaza and the occupied Palestinian territories, as well as on bilateral relations ties.”
Turkey’s foreign minister, Hakan Fidan, railed against Israel in an appaearance before the United Nations Security Council on Tuesday, accusing the Israeli government of wanton “bloodshed” in Gaza rather than a concerted effort to eliminate the threat of Hamas.
“Gaza used to be an open prison. Now, it is a battleground where the Israeli Prime Minister (Benjamin Netanyahu) runs military operations for killing civilians to extend his political life,” Fidan claimed. “The argument that the current war is about providing security for Israel is far from being convincing.”
Israel’s argument that the operations in Gaza are meant to provide security to its citizens stem from the severity of the atrocities Hamas committed on October 7. Hamas terrorists engaged in door-to-door attacks, killing entire families in their homes in residential communities near the border with Gaza. At a music festival, the terrorists reportedly killed as many as 250 people, engaged in brutal gang-rape executions, and tortured their victims. Israeli officials collected evidence of the killing of victims as young as infants and the bodies of children with knives stuck in them.
A spokesman for Hamas, Ghazi Hamad, told the BBC on October 7 that the group had “direct backing” from Iran in orchestrating the attack. The State Department estimated in 2020 that Iran provides Hamas and a fellow “Palestinian” terrorist organization, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, with over $100 million a year in support.
In Turkey, Erdogan responded to the October 7 attacks by declaring, “Hamas is not a terrorist organization, it is a group of mujahideen [jihadists] defending their lands.” Erdogan went on to call Israel a terrorist organization, instead.
