Turkey blocked Israeli president from entering Turkish airspace, say reports

Turkey effectively stopped the Israeli president from attending the COP29 summit in Baku earlier this week by denying permission for his aircraft to enter Turkish airspace, according to several reports citing Azerbaijani and Turkish officials.

On Saturday Israeli President Isaac Herzog's office announced he was cancelling his planned visit to the climate conference in Baku, Azerbaijan.

The president's office cited "security considerations" as the reason, without elaborating further.

But Ynet cited officials in Azerbaijan on Sunday saying the trip was cancelled because Turkey refused to allow the president's plane to enter its airspace.

An unnamed Azerbaijani official reportedly said that Israel and Turkey engaged in "intensive negotiations through diplomatic channels that lasted for several days but did not yield results".

The rest of the Israeli delegation to the conference arrived in Baku on 11 November, having travelled there on commercial flights through Georgia.

Al-Monitor reported that Turkish officials confirmed that the government denied an official Israeli request for Herzog's aircraft to fly through Turkish airspace.

Deteriorating relations

This comes after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced on Wednesday that Turkey has severed all ties to Israel.

“The government of the Republic of Turkey, under the leadership of Tayyip Erdogan, will not continue or develop relations with Israel,” Erdogan said.

“[Our ruling coalition] is resolute in its decision to cut ties with Israel, and we will maintain this stance in the future as well.”

“We, as the Republic of Turkey and its government, have currently severed all relations with Israel."

Turkish-Israeli relations have deteriorated significantly since the Hamas-led attack on Israel on 7 October 2023 and Israel's ensuing war on Gaza, which has killed more than 43,000 Palestinians.

Earlier this year, Turkey intervened in a genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in support of Palestine and advocated for an arms embargo against Tel Aviv.

Now it seems relations have reached their lowest point yet.