Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Thursday that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is dragging his country into "dangerous adventures" in Syria, emphasizing that "Israel will not allow any entity to threaten its security."
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Writing on X (formerly Twitter) in both Hebrew and Turkish, Katz stated: "It would be better for Erdogan to continue his imaginary and detached-from-reality speeches against Israel inside the Turkish parliament, rather than trying to test Israel's determination to defend itself."
Turkey rejected what it described as "baseless allegations" by Israel regarding Ankara's military presence in Syria. This followed an Israeli strike on a Syrian airbase near the Turkish border, under the claim that Syria was about to allow Turkish forces to deploy there.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated that Tel Aviv sent a message warning Turkey against establishing a base in Syria, implicitly acknowledging the strike carried out the previous day.
Meanwhile, Roman Gofman, the head of the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad, held a telephone call with Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad Al-Sheibani last week to discuss the Turkish military presence in Syria.
According to sources, the phone call took place on August 14, days before Israel launched airstrikes on a Syrian military airbase in the north of the country on Tuesday.
This contact represents one of the highest-level direct communications between Israel and the Syrian government since the fall of Bashar al-Assad in December 2024.
AFP
