ISTANBUL: The Turkish government on Tuesday postponed until 2025 a parliamentary debate on a proposed tax on credit cards, which it sought to fund the arms industry as conflict rages in its neighborhood.
Indignant Turks, who already face double-digit inflation, called their banks to lower their credit limits after the governing AKP party submitted the tax bill to parliament on Friday.
After the public outcry, the AKP announced Tuesday that it was delaying debating the bill until next year.
“There were certain objections from our citizens, we will examine all of this in detail,” said the AKP’s parliamentary group chairman, Abdullah Guler.
“We have postponed our discussions and we will reconsider, after the budget, if there are some points to change or remove,” he said.
The proposed legislation came as Israel’s conflicts with Tehran-backed Islamist militants in Gaza and Lebanon, and missile strikes by Iran, have raised global concerns that a broader war could erupt in the Middle East.
“Our country has no choice but to increase its deterrent power. There’s war in our region right now. We are in a troubled neighborhood,” Finance Minister Mehmet Simsek told private broadcaster NTV earlier on Tuesday.
The bill stipulated that people with a credit card limit of at least 100,000 liras (nearly $3,000) would have to pay an annual 750 lira ($22) in tax from January to bolster the defense industry.
“If we increase our deterrent power, then our ability to protect against fire in the region will increase,” Simsek had said, though he added that the bill was in the hands of parliament and that the AKP, could “re-evaluate” it.
When he proposed the tax on Friday, Guler said that Israel’s next target would be Turkiye, an argument often cited by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
A vocal critic of Israel’s offensive in Gaza and Lebanon, Erdogan doubled down on the threat posed by Israel when addressing a conference hosted by his AKP party on Tuesday.
“Even if there are those who cannot see the danger approaching our country... we see the risk and take all kind of measures,” he said.
Turkiye’s defense industry has enjoyed a boom in recent years but Simsek said the sector still needed a boost.
The defense industry is planning to invest in 1,000 projects, including an air defense system that would protect Turkiye from missile assaults, Simsek said.
Turkiye allocated 90 billion lira from the budget to fund the defense industry last year, he added.
“This year, we increased it to 165 billion lira. Maybe we will need to double this even more.”
Turkiye’s defense companies signed contracts in 2023 worth a total of $10.2 billion, according to Haluk Gorgun, the head of Turkiye’s state Defense Industry Agency (SSB).
The top 10 Turkish defense exporters contributed nearly 80 percent of total export revenue, he said.
Sales of Turkish Baykar drones, used in Nagorno-Karabakh or Ukraine, amounted to $1.8 billion.
Last week, parliament held a closed-door session for the government to explain why it saw Israel as a potential threat, but the opposition said it was not convinced.
The spokesman for Turkiye’s main opposition CHP party, Deniz Yucel, said Monday that the government was exploiting nationalist feelings to sweep an “economic crisis” under the carpet.
Inflation has spiralled over the past two years, peaking at an annual rate of 85.5 percent in October 2022.
Official data showed it had slowed to 49.4 percent in September.
“The AKP is trying to create a fake ‘foreign threat and war agenda’ with the rhetoric of ‘Israel may attack us’,” Yucel said.
“We know and see that they are trying to disguise the economic crisis they caused.”
Turkish government delays tax plan to fund defense industry
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Turkish government delays tax plan to fund defense industry
- The bill stipulated that people with a credit card limit of at least 100,000 liras (nearly $3,000) would have to pay an annual 750 lira ($22) in tax from January to bolster the defense industry
EU won’t pull back UN troops from south Lebanon, Austrian minister says
- Benjamin Netanyahu earlier called on the UN to withdraw UNIFIL ‘from Hezbollah strongholds and from the combat zones’
- European nations contribute about 3,600 troops to the 10,000-strong UNIFIL force in Lebanon
Since an Israeli ground operation against Hezbollah militants began on Oct. 1, UNIFIL positions have come under fire and two Israeli tanks burst through the gates of one of its bases, the UN says. Five peacekeepers have been injured.
Sixteen EU countries, including Austria, contribute to UNIFIL and the recent incidents have sparked widespread alarm among European governments.
On Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on the UN to withdraw UNIFIL “from Hezbollah strongholds and from the combat zones.”
But Schallenberg, summarizing a discussion among EU foreign ministers on Monday, said European nations were not minded to pull troops back or out.
“There was no debate about pulling back or whatever,” he said in an interview in Brussels.
“They are there to stay but the security and the safety of our troops is paramount and has to be ensured by everybody,” said Schallenberg, whose country has about 160 soldiers in UNIFIL.
European nations contribute about 3,600 troops to the 10,000-strong force.
EU contributors plan to hold a video call on Wednesday on their current posture and the longer-term role of the mission when it comes to troop levels, equipment and rules of engagement, according to European officials.
Israeli officials have said their forces are not deliberately targeting UNIFIL but Hezbollah has used peacekeepers’ positions as cover for attacks and Israel has a right to respond.
Schallenberg said Israel had a right to defend itself against Hezbollah but even unintentional attacks on peacekeeping positions were a breach of international law.
“There’s a clear demand on Israel to be very cautious on this,” he said in the interview, which took place late on Tuesday afternoon.
Israel strikes southern Beirut after rejecting ceasefire
- Beirut’s Haret Hreik area targeted, which followed an Israeli military warning for residents to evacuate
- The US ramps up pressure on Israel, criticizing the bombing of Beirut
BEIRUT: The Israeli military launched strikes in southern Beirut on Wednesday, after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dismissed calls for a ceasefire in Lebanon, saying it would leave Hezbollah forces near his country’s border.
An AFP journalist saw black smoke rising from Beirut’s Haret Hreik area after two strikes, which followed an Israeli military warning for residents to evacuate.
One of the strikes targeted weapons “stockpiled by Hezbollah in an underground storage facility,” the military said.
Netanyahu’s refusal to halt the offensive came as the United States ramped up pressure on Israel, criticizing the bombing of Beirut and urging more aid access for Gazans.
In a call with French President Emmanuel Macron, Netanyahu said he was “opposed to a unilateral ceasefire, which does not change the security situation in Lebanon, and which will only return it to the way it was,” according to his office.
Israel insists it needs a buffer zone along its northern border, free of Hezbollah fighters.
“Netanyahu clarified that Israel would not agree to any arrangement that does not provide this (a buffer zone) and which does not stop Hezbollah from rearming and regrouping,” the statement said.
Hezbollah’s deputy leader, Naim Qassem, said the only solution was a ceasefire while threatening to expand its missile strikes across Israel.
“Since the Israeli enemy targeted all of Lebanon, we have the right from a defensive position to target any place” in Israel, he said.
Early Wednesday Israel’s military said about 50 projectiles were fired from Lebanon at the country’s north, without any reports of casualties.
Iran-backed Hezbollah said it launched several salvos of rockets on northern Israel and army positions.
The Israeli military said it had “eliminated dozens of terrorists during exchanges of fire and aerial strikes” in Lebanon.
Israel bombed several areas in southern and eastern Lebanon on Tuesday, including in the Bekaa Valley, where a hospital was knocked out of service, the official National News Agency reported.
The Israeli military said it had captured three Hezbollah fighters in south Lebanon.
Lebanon’s health ministry reported nine deaths from strikes on the country’s south, and five more in the east, including three children.
The US State Department criticized Israeli strikes.
“We have made clear that we are opposed to the campaign the way we’ve seen it conducted over the past weeks” in Beirut, said spokesman Matthew Miller.
In a letter to Israel’s government on Sunday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin warned US weapons deliveries to Israel could be withheld unless more aid reaches Gazans.
The letter made clear “there are changes that they need to make again to see that the level of assistance making it into Gaza comes back up from the very, very low levels that it is at today,” Miller said.
The United Nations warned restrictions on aid to Gaza were the worst since Israel’s offensive on Hamas began in October last year.
“We see now what is probably the worst restrictions we’ve seen on humanitarian aid, ever,” said James Elder, a spokesman for the UN’s children’s agency UNICEF, noting there were several days where no trucks were allowed into Gaza.
Israeli forces have been conducting air and ground assaults on northern Gaza and Jabalia, amid claims Hamas militants were regrouping in the area.
“The whole area has been reduced to ashes,” said Rana Abdel Majid, 38, from northern Gaza’s Al-Faluja area, describing the “indiscriminate, merciless bombing” that has levelled entire blocks.
Israel’s military said it had “eliminated over 50 terrorists in close-quarters encounters and aerial strikes” in Jabalia during the past day.
At a shelter hit by an Israeli strike in the central Nuseirat camp, Fatima Al-Azab said: “There is no safety anywhere.”
“They are all children, sleeping in the covers, all burned and cut up,” she said.
Israel launched a military campaign in Gaza after an October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas that resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures, including hostages killed in captivity.
The Israeli campaign has killed 42,344 people, the majority civilians, according to figures from the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory which the UN considers reliable.
Israel escalated its air campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon from September 23, launching a ground offensive a week later to push the group back from its northern border.
Hezbollah has fired thousands of projectiles into Israel over the past year in support of Hamas, displacing tens of thousands of Israelis.
At least 1,356 people have been killed in Lebanon since Israel intensified its bombing last month, according to an AFP tally of Lebanese health ministry figures, though the real toll is likely higher.
The war in Lebanon, which has suffered years of economic crisis, has displaced at least 690,000 people, according to figures from the International Organization for Migration.
Israel is also weighing how to respond to Iran’s launch of about 200 missiles at the country on October 1.
Netanyahu’s office said Israel — and not its top ally the United States — would decide how to strike back.
“We listen to the opinions of the United States, but we will make our final decisions based on our national interest,” it said.
Iran’s top diplomat told UN chief Antonio Guterres his country was ready for a “decisive and regretful” response if Israel attacks, his office said.
The Iranian barrage was in retaliation for an Israeli strike in Lebanon’s Beirut that killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, and another that killed Iranian general Abbas Nilforoushan on September 27.
Jordan, Turkiye urge action against Israeli war on Gaza, Lebanon
CAIRO: Jordan and Turkiye have continued to urge action to stop the Israeli war on Gaza and the conflict in Lebanon.
Jordan’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates Ayman Safadi and his Turkish counterpart Hakan Fidan have agreed in Ankara on the priority of stopping the Israeli war on Gaza, according to Petra News Agency.
Safadi said on Tuesday: “We are continuing our joint coordination and permanent cooperation to achieve our goal of stopping the brutal Israeli aggression on Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon and achieving a just and comprehensive peace.”
He said “all indications show that Israel wants to empty northern Gaza of its residents by targeting hospitals and even the only operating bakery in northern Gaza,” adding, “This is a war crime, whether in preventing food and medicine from reaching Gaza or using starvation as a weapon. Israel’s ethnic cleansing is also another war crime.”
On Israel’s war in Lebanon, Safadi said: “We see the Israeli aggression continuing, and what happened proves that what Israel wants is far beyond what it claims to guarantee its security
Meanwhile, Turkish Parliament Speaker Numan Kurtulmus has decried what he termed an “artificial intelligence-assisted genocide” in Gaza during a speech he delivered in Geneva.
“We are dismayed by the ongoing artificial intelligence-assisted genocide in Gaza,” Kurtulmus said, as cited by Hurriyet Daily News.
“We are appalled by reports revealing how technology is being intentionally misused by Israel to conduct indiscriminate attacks on civilians.”
The speaker condemned what he called “techno-brutality,” and spoke on the impact of Israeli airstrikes on Gaza using these technologies, which have led to “the atrocities of catastrophic proportions and the scale of mass destruction.”
Iran warns of ‘decisive’ response if Israel strikes, urges UN action
- Tehran fired about 200 missiles at Israel on October 1 in revenge for the killing of two of its closest allies
- ‘Iran ... is fully prepared for a decisive and regretful response to any adventures’
TEHRAN: Iran’s top diplomat has warned UN chief Antonio Guterres that Tehran is ready for a “decisive and regretful” response if Israel attacks his country in retaliation for a missile attack.
The Islamic republic fired about 200 missiles at Israel on October 1 in revenge for the killing of two of its closest allies, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, as well as an Iranian general.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant vowed last week that his country’s retaliatory measure would be “deadly, precise and surprising.”
“Iran, while making all-out efforts to protect the peace and security of the region, is fully prepared for a decisive and regretful response to any adventures” by Israel, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said during a phone call with Guterres, according to a statement from his office on Wednesday.
During the call on Tuesday evening, Araghchi also appealed to the United Nations to use its resources “to stop the crimes and aggressions of the Israeli regime and to send humanitarian aid to Lebanon and Gaza.”
Over the past week, the Iranian foreign minister has visited Lebanon, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Iraq and Oman in an effort to ease tensions.
Araghchi arrived in Jordan on Wednesday before traveling to Egypt and Turkiye, Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei said in a post on social media platform X.
The developments come against the backdrop of a war between Israel and Iran-allied Palestinian militant group Hamas that has been raging for more than a year and has expanded to include Lebanon in recent weeks.
Israeli military says 50 projectiles fired from Lebanon
JERUSALEM: The Israeli military said around 50 projectiles were fired from Lebanon at the country’s north early Wednesday, without any reports of casualties.
“Some of the projectiles were intercepted and fallen projectiles were identified in the area,” a military statement said, while Hezbollah said it launched “a large salvo of missiles” at the town of Safed.
