On Saturday, April 20, Recep Tayyip Erdogan met again with Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh. Turkey's president called on Palestinians to stick together and called for a ceasefire in Gaza. According to the Turkish television TRT, the meeting was held in Istanbul.
NATO member Turkey has maintained contacts with militant Islamist Palestinians for years. According to the conservative American research center "Foundation for the Defense of Democracies" (FDD), Hamas receives not only political, but also financial and material support from Turkey.
"Resistance group" against "terrorist state"
Hamas has controlled the Gaza Strip and its administrative structures since 2007. But forty countries classify these militant Islamists as a terrorist organization. This includes Israel, EU member states, the US and most other NATO countries. But not Turkey.
President Erdogan did condemn the large-scale terrorist attack on Israel on October 7, in which Hamas terrorists killed around 1.200 people and kidnapped 240 hostages in the Gaza Strip, but at the same time described the Palestinian organization as a "resistance group". On the other hand, he repeatedly called Israel, which is a NATO ally, a "terrorist state".
Hamas leaders with Turkish passports
Political contacts between Hamas and Turkey are currently particularly intense. A few days before the meeting with Erdogan, Haniyeh already met with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan for talks in Qatar. Relations with Turkey's ruling AKP party have been maintained for more than a decade. In early 2012, Erdogan, then prime minister, invited Haniyeh to Turkey. The Hamas leader emerged as prime minister in the last Palestinian Legislative Council elections in 2006.
Turkey is now considered a safe haven for Hamas leaders. In recent years, Ankara has granted Turkish citizenship to Haniyeh and other Hamas commanders. This also applies to Haniyeh's former deputy, Saleh al-Aruri, who was allegedly killed in an Israeli drone attack in Lebanon earlier this year.
Financial aid from Turkey
There is also ample evidence that Turkey plays an important role in funding Hamas. According to various investigations, this organization has accounts in Turkish banks through which, among other things, donations from supporters from EU countries reach the Palestinian Islamists.
Erdogan's government also gave about $300 million to militant Islamists in the Gaza Strip in 2012, according to Turkish media reports. Donations for Hamas are also believed to be collected by Turkish non-governmental organizations.
Several companies based in Turkey are attributed to Hamas and have been sanctioned by the US Treasury Department for supporting terrorism. The same goes for Jihad Jagmur, the representative of Hamas in Turkey, who is said to have raised money in Turkey. A US district court found that Jagmur financed a terrorist attack by Hamas in the West Bank in 2015 that killed two Israelis with US citizenship.
Shortly after the October 7, 2023 terrorist attack, the US Treasury Department added four more suspected Hamas supporters living in Turkey to its sanctions list.
Erdogan's plans with Hamas
Turkish President Erdogan has been trying for some time to mediate between the hostile political camps of the Palestinians: between the Islamist Hamas and the secular Fatah, led by Mahmoud Abbas.
Turkish journalist in exile Fehim Tastekin explained in an interview for another program of the German public service ZDF that Erdogan wanted to make Hamas moderate so that he could bring it to the same table with Fatah and thus become internationally acceptable.
"If Turkey succeeds in transforming Hamas, it also means that Hamas will distance itself from Iran," Tastekin said.
Erdogan's goal could be to reduce Iran's influence in the region, and expand and strengthen Turkey's influence.
Bonus video:
