Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan deliberately delayed his landing at Sharm el-Sheikh airport following a last-minute request to President Donald Trump to bar Benjamin Netanyahu from attending the Gaza ‘peace summit’.
President Erdoğan’s plane refused to land at Sharm el-Sheikh airport ahead of Monday’s “Peace in the Middle East” summit, amid reports that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would be attending.
Erdoğan’s plane was seen overshooting the runway and hovering over the Red Sea region “before eventually landing at the airport and being welcomed by low-level Egyptian ministers”, Anadolu Agency reported.
President Trump allegedly had to revoke Netanyahu’s invitation after Erdoğan said he would not land his plane in Egypt, and would return to Ankara if the invitation to Netanyahu stood.
The mid-air power play began after it was announced that Netanyahu had accepted a late invitation from Trump to the summit, which was chaired by US president and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi.
Several flight tracking websites showed Erdoğan’s plane as still not having landed at 14:00 GMT, well after it was scheduled to land.
Following the late announcement of Netanyahu’s expected presence at the summit, it is known that Erdoğan personally spoke to Sisi to raise his objections whilst his plane was above Egypt.
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CNN Türk also reported that when reports of Netanyahu’s inclusion circulated, not just Turkiye, but several of the visiting delegations announced that they would not attend, only reversing their decision once his office announced his non-attendance.
However, a senior Turkish official told CNN that the Turkish authorities had directly communicated and reached out to the US to urge them to reverse their invitation to Netanyahu.
Netanyahu rejects invitation to summit for ‘religious reasons’
Netanyahu’s office later reported that he would not be attending the summit due to the Atzeret-Simchat Torah holiday, which began on Monday night.
Previous Israeli leaders were known not to travel on the Sabbath and Jewish holidays unless extraordinary circumstances required it.
Netanyahu’s office extended their thanks to Trump for the invitation, saying that Netanyahu “would not be able to attend due to the proximity of the event to the start of the holiday”.
The summit also drew attention from various media outlets over how Netanyahu would have been received had he attended, as several of the visiting heads of state and diplomats do not officially recognise Israel.
Namely, the presence of delegates from Qatar, Pakistan, Iraq, Indonesia, Kuwait and Oman, none of which recognise Israel.
Renewed ties between Turkiye and the US
Trump and Erdoğan recently resumed a close diplomatic relationship following the Turkish president’s visit to the White House on September 29, establishing military cooperation and setting a $100bn trade target between the two nations.
“President Erdoğan was fantastic. He really helped a lot, because he’s very respected,” President Trump said at the Gaza summit on Monday.
Netanyahu’s presence would also have complicated the stances of many of the Arab states that are signatories to the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant against Netanyahu for war crimes in Gaza.
The complicated politics surrounding the presence of Netanyahu at the summit show just how difficult it will be for certain Muslim countries to normalise relations with Israel in the way that Trump is hoping for as he described the ceasefire as “a historic dawn of a new Middle East”.
Monday’s summit took place days after Israel and Hamas ratified the ceasefire agreement to “end the war” and exchange hostages.
The ceasefire deal marks the first phase of the US “peace plan”, which expects to see a full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, the disarmament of Hamas, and the deployment of international peacekeeping troops.
The ceasefire ended the genocide in Gaza, which led to at least 70,000 Palestinian deaths at the hands of Israel.
