Turkiye

Three nations to group ministers, hold ⁠joint exercises and deepen defence industry cooperation under the pact signed last week.

Turkiye, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan will group senior ministers, hold ⁠joint exercises and deepen defence industry cooperation under a military pact signed between the regional powers last week, Turkiye’s defence ministry says.

The three countries on August 7 signed the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement on August 7, which stipulates that an armed attack against any member would be regarded as ‌an attack on all, similar to NATO’s Article 5 collective defence clause.

At a weekly briefing in Ankara on Thursday, the Turkish defence ministry said the pact’s fundamental goal was to ensure defence and military ties were put on a “more institutional and sustainable” footing.

“Under the accord, strategic political and military mechanisms plan to be established involving the Defence Ministers, Foreign Ministers, and Chiefs of General ⁠Staff/Armed Forces Commanders, and that coordination among the three countries will ⁠be conducted at the highest level,” it said.

The ministry added that joint military exercises involving land, naval and air forces, as well as air defence and unmanned systems were planned, in ⁠addition to deeper defence industry cooperation.

“The aim is to provide not only product and system supply, but also joint ⁠development and production, technology cooperation, and sustainable maintenance and ⁠logistics support,” it said, adding that unmanned and autonomous systems, electronic warfare and artificial intelligence capabilities would be prioritised.

Turkiye, which has NATO’s second-largest army, has said the pact with nuclear-armed Pakistan and top oil ‌exporter Saudi Arabia was open to expansion — with Egypt as a potential candidate — and did not seek to replace any existing alliances.

The ministry also said Turkiye ‌was ‌participating in meetings in Jeddah aimed at establishing an international coalition to protect Red Sea shipping.

On developments in the Middle East, ministry spokesperson Rear Admiral Zeki Akturk said lasting peace and stability in the region would be possible if Israel ends its occupation and attacks in Gaza and Lebanon.

He said Israel continues attacks that have deepened the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, as also reflected in United Nations reports.

“Israel’s rejection of the 15-point Gaza Plan has been another indication that it is pursuing a policy of regional expansionism. On the other hand, despite the framework agreement that was signed, Israel similarly continues its attacks and military activities in southern Lebanon,” Akturk said, referring to the plan proposed by the United States.

“We once again emphasise that it is essential for the international community to take a more determined and stronger stance against Israel’s actions by upholding international law and humanitarian values in order to establish peace and stability in the region,” he said.

The tournament from February 2 to 7 will feature Barcelona, Real Madrid, Atletico Madrid and Real Sociedad.

The 2027 Spanish Super Cup will be held in Turkiye at Istanbul’s Ataturk Olympic Stadium, the Spanish Football Federation has announced.

The Final Four tournament will take place from February 2 to 7 and feature Barcelona, Real Madrid, Atletico Madrid and Real Sociedad, the federation said in a statement on Thursday.

Saudi Arabia has hosted the competition since 2020 but was ruled out as the dates coincide with the Asian Cup, the continent’s premier men’s international football tournament.

Barcelona, the reigning Super Cup champions after beating Real Madrid in the 2026 final, said in a statement that the Superr Cup will return to Saudi Arabia in 2028.

The Spanish Super Cup features the winners and runners-up of La Liga and the Copa del Rey.

Leaders of Saudi Arabia, Turkiye and Pakistan signed the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement last Friday, pledging to strengthen collective deterrence against any act of aggression and stating that an armed attack on any one of the three would be regarded as an attack on all.

The pact comes as the three countries navigate growing regional tensions, including concerns over Israel’s expanding military reach and Iran’s regional influence.

Together, these countries form a sizeable military bloc. Riyadh is a top oil exporter, Ankara has NATO’s second-largest military, and Islamabad is the only nuclear-armed Muslim country.

In this explainer, Al Jazeera breaks down their combined land, air and naval strength.

Joint land, air and naval strength

Together, the three countries combine nearly 1.4 million active military personnel, 3,400 aircraft, 6,000 tanks and more than 340 naval assets according to the 2026 Global Firepower Index, which ranks the defence capabilities of 145 countries.

The index scores each country’s potential war-making capability across land, air and sea, drawing on factors including manpower, equipment, natural resources, finances and geography.

• Manpower: Combined, the three countries include about 1.4 million active personnel, backed by large paramilitary and reserve forces. Pakistan provides the largest pool of active personnel at 660,000, followed by Turkiye at 481,000 and Saudi Arabia at 247,000.
• Air power: Together they operate 3,415 military aircraft including fighter jets, helicopters, transporters and training military aircraft. Pakistan possesses some 1,397 aircraft, followed by Turkiye at 1,101 and Saudi Arabia with 917.
• Land forces: The three countries field some 6,046 tanks and more than 179,000 armoured vehicles, alongside thousands of artillery systems and multiple-launch rocket systems. Pakistan has the highest number of tanks at 2,677, Turkiye has 2,284 and Saudi Arabia, 1,085.
• Naval power: Their combined fleets include 344 naval assets, including 33 frigates, 24 corvettes and 22 submarines. Turkiye comes out top here with 192 naval assets, followed by Pakistan’s 120 and Saudi Arabia’s 32.
• Defence spending: Their combined defence budgets amount to about $124.4bn annually. Saudi Arabia has the largest military budget of the three at $63.9bn in 2026, while Turkiye set aside $51.4bn and Pakistan $9.1bn according to Global Firepower.

Complementary military powers

Andreas Krieg, an academic, security analyst and political risk consultant specialising in the Middle East and North Africa, said the pact’s significance lies in how the three countries’ different capabilities could complement one another.

“Saudi Arabia contributes capital, geography, infrastructure and political convening power. Turkiye contributes an increasingly sophisticated defence-industrial base, drones, missiles, sensors, electronic warfare, naval systems and NATO-derived military expertise,” he said.

Meanwhile, Pakistan contributes manpower, a large professional military establishment, operational experience, defence production and nuclear capability.

What does the alliance mean for each country?

For Saudi Arabia, the pact diversifies its defence partnerships beyond the United States, adding Turkiye’s advanced military capabilities and Pakistan’s nuclear deterrent, amid growing threats to vital maritime corridors such as the Strait of Hormuz and Bab al-Mandeb.

Pakistan is one of nine states that possess nuclear weapons, which it first tested in 1998. The country of more than 250 million people relies heavily on China for its arms imports.

Turkiye, which joined NATO in 1952, has no nuclear weapons of its own but hosts US warheads under NATO nuclear-sharing arrangements.

David Des Roches, a former director of Arabian Peninsula affairs in the US Department of Defense, told Al Jazeera that the deal also serves Saudi arms diversification amid Western export unpredictability, since Turkiye and Pakistan can supply items like 155mm artillery shells at scale.

For Turkiye and Pakistan, it opens Saudi financial markets for their defence industries – both have manufacturing capacity exceeding what their own economies can sustain.

Zaid M Belbagi, managing partner at Hardcastle Advisory, told Al Jazeera that, for the US, the stakes are high. “Pakistan is a recipient of US aid, Saudi Arabia is the largest foreign buyer of US military equipment, and Turkiye is NATO’s second-largest army after the United States – so the spectre of the US within this agreement is quite interesting,” he said.

Krieg added that the US remains highly important, particularly for intelligence, advanced missile defence, and high-end military technology – but said that regional actors want to convert their own resources into usable power rather than purchasing from Washington.

“The old model was overwhelmingly hub-and-spokes, with Washington at the centre and individual states looking primarily to the United States for security. What is emerging now is horizontal connectivity between regional powers,” said Krieg.

Which other countries could join the pact?

Egypt is the only country whose potential membership has been publicly raised by a signatory. Turkiye’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan called Egypt a “natural partner” and said he expected Cairo to join once technical issues are resolved.

Krieg said Egypt’s military weight, strategic geography and control of the Suez Canal would make it a significant addition to the pact.

But Cairo may be wary of binding military obligations and the impact on its existing agreements, analysts said. “Egypt may join only if the language protects its aid relationship with Washington, doesn’t undermine existing alliances and peace treaties, and maintains its own freedom to decide when and where it fights,” said Karim Elgendy at Chatham House.

The pact includes an Article 5-style mutual-defence clause, but questions remain over how it would operate in practice and how Tehran will respond.

Turkish leaders have insisted that the new trilateral defence pact with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan is not directed at Iran.

Turkiye’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said on Saturday that the pact does not identify Iran, or any other country, as a common threat.

The Mecca Joint Defence Agreement was signed on Friday by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, stating that an armed attack on one of the three countries would be considered an attack on them all.

“There is no common threat that we have put in writing,” Fidan told Turkey’s state-run Anadolu agency, adding that countries that do not attack the signatories would not be considered targets.

An Article 5-style commitment

Fidan described the pact as “technically” similar to NATO’s Article 5 collective-defence clause, under which an attack on one member is treated as an attack on all.

But the response would depend on the circumstances.

A country under attack would have to request assistance and specify what kind of support it needed, Fidan said. That could range from intelligence and logistics to ammunition or the deployment of military units.

The alliance will also establish political and military committees, bringing together foreign and defence ministers and military chiefs, as well as a secretariat in Saudi Arabia.

Fidan said the three countries would work on joint training, intelligence sharing, logistics, threat assessments and military interoperability.

Defence-industry cooperation is also expected to be a notable part of the pact. Fidan said it was one of the main issues discussed by the three leaders in Mecca, including how the countries could benefit from each other’s military technologies.

The Turkish minister said preparations for the agreement had been under way for nearly two years and eight months, suggesting it was not drawn up simply in response to the current tensions involving Iran.

Iran pushes back

Despite Ankara’s assurances, some Iranian officials have questioned the agreement and warned Saudi Arabia against relying on its new partners for security.

Mahmoud Nabavian, a member of Iran’s parliamentary National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, said Saudi leaders should understand that cooperation with Turkiye and Pakistan would not guarantee their security.

Another commission member, Ebrahim Rezaei, similarly dismissed the pact as a “paper agreement”.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi did not directly mention the agreement in a message on X on Friday, but he called on regional states to rely on themselves and pursue what he described as “true brotherhood”.

At the same time, he stressed the strength and readiness of Iran’s armed forces.

Egypt could join next

Fidan portrayed the agreement as part of a broader effort to give regional countries greater responsibility for their own security.

“External hegemons coming into the region do not solve the problems; they make them more acute,” he told Anadolu.

He described Turkiye, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan as the “core countries” of the initiative and made clear that Ankara wants the arrangement to expand.

“Under our president’s vision, we should not remain limited to three countries,” Fidan said. “We should grow and, if necessary, bring all countries under this umbrella.”

Several countries have already expressed interest, according to Fidan, who said he expected Egypt, which he described as a “natural partner”, to join once outstanding technical issues were resolved.

For now, many of the practical details remain to be worked out, including how the three militaries would coordinate in a crisis.

But the planned committees, permanent secretariat and focus on interoperability and defence-industry cooperation suggest the pact is intended to develop beyond a simple mutual defence declaration.

Egyptian football star Mohamed Salah has been greeted by hundreds of fans upon arriving in Istanbul wearing Trabzonspor’s burgundy-and-blue kit ahead of his expected move to the Turkish Super Lig club.

Ex-Liverpool star Mohamed Salah arrived in Istanbul on Wednesday to complete his move to Turkiye club Trabzonspor.

Mohamed Salah arrived at an Istanbul airport on Wednesday, smiling and wearing Trabzonspor’s burgundy and blue kit before his expected move to ⁠the Turkish top-tier side, as hundreds of fans jostled to get a glimpse of the Egyptian forward.

Trabzonspor announced a day earlier they were in negotiations with Salah, who left Liverpool at the end of last season, and club chairman Ertugrul ⁠Dogan said they expected to sign the 34-year-old on a free transfer at a ceremony in the Black Sea city on Thursday.

“Trabzon, are you ready? I can hear you. See you very soon,” Salah said in a video posted by the club on X.

“Everywhere is Trabzon to us,” he added, referring to the club’s motto while wearing a Trabzonspor ‌kit.

Upon arriving at Ataturk Airport, Salah was met by hundreds of fans. He waved at supporters and initiated a traditional chant with them, before departing for a medical check and a later planned flight east to Trabzon.

Salah spent nine years at Liverpool, scoring 257 goals in 442 appearances and winning the Premier League twice and the Champions League once.

In the 2024-25 season, Salah scored 29 Premier League goals and provided 18 ⁠assists, equalling the league record for most goal involvements in a single ⁠season and setting the record for a 38-game campaign.

He was named Premier League Player of the Season and won the Golden Boot and the Playmaker Award, becoming the first player to take all three in one campaign.

His output waned last season, with ⁠seven goals and seven assists in 27 league matches, and he was left on the bench in Champions League games, leading to a public ⁠spat with Liverpool’s then-manager Arne Slot.

Salah started his career in Europe ⁠at Swiss side Basel in 2012 and later joined Chelsea. He also had brief stints at Fiorentina and AS Roma between 2015 and 2017 before joining Liverpool.

Trabzonspor – generally considered to be the fourth biggest team in Turkiye after Istanbul sides Fenerbahce, Galatasaray, ‌and Besiktas – finished third in the Super Lig last season and will enter the Europa League playoff round. The club’s last league championship was in the 2021-22 season.

Salah had been close to joining Besiktas, ‌but ‌negotiations had stalled over financial and image-rights demands, according to local media.

Details of the contract Salah is expected to sign have not been disclosed yet.

Ahmet Davutoglu was once one of Turkiye’s most powerful figures: The academic who helped shape the country’s ambitious foreign policy after the turn of the century, served as foreign minister and prime minister, and was chosen by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to lead the governing Justice and Development Party, or AK Party.

But later, he became a critic of the political system he had helped build.

Now, after announcing that his opposition Future Party would cease political activities, Davutoglu is withdrawing from party politics. He described the decision not as surrender but as an effort to distance himself from what he called Turkiye’s “polluted political climate”.

His departure leaves a contested legacy – that of an intellectual who transformed Tukiye’s diplomatic outlook, but struggled to turn his ideas and prominence into an independent political movement.

From professor to foreign minister

Born in 1959 in Taskent, in the central province of Konya, Davutoglu studied economics and political science at Bogazici University before becoming an academic.

He taught in Malaysia and at universities in Turkiye, with students calling him “Hoca”, or the professor – a title that followed him into government.

Davutoglu became widely known for his so-called “strategic depth” doctrine, the argument that Turkiye’s geography, Ottoman history and connections across the Balkans, Middle East, Caucasus and Central Asia could make it a central diplomatic power rather than a country confined to Europe’s periphery.

After the AK Party came to power in 2002, he became Erdogan’s chief foreign policy adviser. He was appointed foreign minister in 2009 and entered parliament in 2011.

His early years in government coincided with an expansion of Turkish influence.

Ankara opened embassies, strengthened its presence in Africa and the Middle East, mediated regional disputes and promoted trade and visa-free travel with neighbouring countries. The approach became known as “zero problems with neighbours”.

Tarik Celenk, a writer and analyst familiar with Turkiye’s conservative intellectual tradition, said Davutoglu altered the country’s diplomatic culture.

“Davutoglu brought a change of mentality to the Foreign Ministry cadres,” Celenk said, crediting him with opening diplomacy to businesses and civil society.

Celenk noted that Davutoglu sought to position Turkiye as a country capable of communicating with otherwise incompatible actors. “Davutoglu was able to have good relations with Hamas, with Russia, and also to have good relations with the US,” he added.

Davutoglu called this intensive and multidirectional engagement “rhythmic diplomacy” – an effort to maintain dialogue across competing regional and global power centres.

But the Arab uprisings, particularly the war in Syria, exposed the limits of that vision, analysts said. Turkiye supported the Syrian opposition and anticipated that President Bashar al-Assad’s government would fall quickly. Instead, the conflict brought mass displacement, security threats and prolonged instability.

“His principal mistake in foreign policy was that he was very emotional, very romantic,” said Celenk, arguing that Davutoglu struggled to establish boundaries between “idealism, romanticism and realism”.

Erdogan’s chosen successor

When Erdogan moved from the prime minister’s office to the presidency in 2014, he selected Davutoglu to succeed him as AK Party leader and prime minister.

The arrangement contained a fundamental contradiction. Under Turkiye’s parliamentary system at the time, Davutoglu formally headed the government. But Erdogan continued to dominate the governing party and exercise authority from the presidency while advocating an executive presidential system.

Davutoglu led the AK Party through two elections in 2015. After losing its parliamentary majority in June, the party regained it in November with nearly half the national vote. Yet the victory did not give Davutoglu an independent power base.

According to Celenk, Davutoglu entered politics imagining a forest without “wolves, foxes, jackals or snakes” – but discovered while prime minister “that this forest did not exist”.

Amid disagreements over appointments, governance and Erdogan’s efforts to expand presidential authority, Davutoglu stepped down in 2016. He remained in the AK Party for another three years before resigning and establishing the Future Party in 2019.

An opposition party without a base

The party sought to attract conservative voters disillusioned with Erdogan while advocating parliamentary democracy, the rule of law and accountable government. It never developed substantial electoral support.

Political scientist Berk Esen said opposition parties face structural disadvantages in Turkiye, where the governing party has extensive access to state resources and much of the media.

But those conditions did not fully explain the failure of Davutoglu’s party, he added. “For one thing, the Future Party was already half stillborn by its very foundation,” argued Esen.

Davutoglu and Ali Babacan, another former senior AK Party figure, established separate opposition parties, dividing an already limited pool of disaffected conservative voters. Both also struggled to confront the records of the governments in which they had served.

In the 2023 elections, Future Party candidates entered parliament on the lists of the Republican People’s Party, or CHP, then Turkiye’s main opposition party. The arrangement delivered seats but exposed the party’s dependence on a larger organisation.

Esen said pursuing guaranteed representation prevented the Future Party from fielding its own candidates across Turkiye and building local networks.

“In order to achieve a small success in the short term, they squandered the party’s institutional identity in the medium term,” he said. “And that is already why this party closed.”

Celenk offered a similar assessment: “You could say that the Future Party was never the party of the future. It became stuck in the past.”

Yet he distinguished between Davutoglu, the unsuccessful party leader, and Davutoglu, the intellectual.

“Let us criticise Ahmet Davutoglu the politician together, all the way to the end,” he said.

“But Ahmet Davutoglu’s intellectual production capacity within the conservative community was belittled and not taken seriously,” added Celenk, referring to sections of Turkiye’s conservative political and religious establishment which, according to him, benefited from Davutoglu’s ideas and intellectual framework but did not sufficiently acknowledge his contribution.

Esen said he doubts Davutoglu could exercise significant political influence while Erdogan remains in power. “But I think, in practice, his political career appears to be over,” he said.

Yet the analysts found substance in Davutoglu’s explanation for withdrawing. Celenk said his four-page letter offered a serious diagnosis of “the state the country, its politics and its society have reached”, including the risk that Turkiye was “losing its character as a nation”. Esen agreed that “Turkish politics has become very polluted and authoritarian”, adding that some of Davutoglu’s criticisms were therefore well grounded.

Davutoglu exits party politics without establishing the conservative democratic alternative he promised. But some of the ideas and diplomatic practices he introduced survived his loss of power, ensuring that debate over his legacy will outlast the party he founded.

“At least as Davutoglu leaves politics and withdraws from institutional politics, this must be remembered,” said Celenk.

Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi is leading a high-level delegation to Turkiye, in his first visit to the neighbouring country since taking office in May.

Accompanied by ministers and senior officials, al-Zaidi’s visit on Tuesday will focus on “strategic cooperation” between the two countries, as well as issues related to security, water and the economy, according to government spokesman Haider al-Aboudi.

Relations between Iraq and Turkiye have fluctuated over the past decade but remained a priority for both sides, particularly for Iraq in relation to oil and water resources.

And the launch of the US-Israel war on Iran in February and the subsequent closure of the Strait of Hormuz have elevated Ankara’s importance for Baghdad, prompting it to press Turkish authorities to resume and increase the exporting of oil through the Iraqi-Turkiye pipeline after years of suspension.

New oil agreement

The two countries are seeking to sign an oil pipeline agreement that governs the export of Iraqi oil after the expiration of the previous deal on Monday.

A source from Iraq’s Ministry of Oil told Al Jazeera that a technical delegation arrived in Ankara late last week to finalise a one-year extension of the old oil-exporting agreement until a new deal is concluded.

“The new Turkish terms regarding a new agreement are very difficult to be accepted by Iraq. For this reason, no one other than the Iraqi council of ministers is to take such a decision regarding this issue,” said the official on condition of anonymity.

”Turkiye wants to increase the interest from $1.35 for each barrel to $7, and the export capacity must not be less than 1.5 million bpd [barrels per day], whether Iraq can reach this level or not,” the source added.

Part of al-Zaidi’s plan is to find new energy deals and secure alternate routes to export Iraqi crude via Turkiye and Syria and to the Mediterranean Sea.

Iraq signed energy deals estimated at $200bn with US companies during al-Zaidi’s visit to the United States earlier this month, and the government aims to increase its oil and gas production, as well as to diversify exporting options.

“There is an urgent need to find new export outlets away from the Strait of Hormuz, which no longer meets Iraq’s requirements. We must expedite and shorten the timeframe for negotiations and contracting in order to establish new export routes,” said Iraqi Oil Minister Basim Khudair.

Development Route 

During his visit, al-Zaidi is also expected to pursue the establishment of strong trade, development and economic ties while seeking to draw from Turkiye’s experience across different industries.

A government source told Al Jazeera that the prime minister will highlight the importance of utilising Turkish expertise in the energy, infrastructure and transport sectors to boost Iraq’s development initiatives.

Among the main projects is the so-called Development Route – a vital transport project that connects Iraq’s al-Fao port in the south all the way north to the Iraq-Turkiye-Syria border triangle through a 1,200km (746-mile) rail and a highway network that passes through 10 Iraqi provinces.

Abd al-Jabar Ahmad, a professor of political science, said continued attacks by armed groups “have effectively derailed” the project.

He also cast doubt al-Zaidi visit’s will yield major results in relation to it, pointing to Ankara’s involvement in a transport corridor seeking to link Turkiye to Jordan through Syria and then Saudi Arabia.

“In my view, the Saudi project stripped Iraq’s Development Road Project of much of its economic and investment appeal,” he added.

Water and security   

Water management is also expected to be prioritised during al-Zaidi’s discussions in Turkiye.

Iraq blames Turkiye for building dams that have affected the flow of water from its two main rivers – the Tigris and the Euphrates – which originate in Turkish territory.

“Iraq views it as an issue that impacts the future of millions of Iraqis,” said the government source.

But the most complicated and sensitive issue concerns security – particularly, the presence of Turkish forces on Iraqi soil to fight the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, which Turkiye, the US and European Union have designated as a “terrorist” group.

Military estimates suggest that Turkiye has about 50 small and big bases in three Iraqi provinces – Erbil, Duhok and Nineveh – hosting some 5,000 soldiers and weaponry, including artillery and armoured vehicles, as well as heavy and medium arms.

In mid-2025, the PKK announced it had taken its first steps towards disarmament as part of a wider peace deal with Ankara to end 40 years of war against the Turkish state in a conflict that has killed more than 40,000 people. Still, Turkiye continues to view the armed group’s presence in different mountainous areas in northern Iraq as a national security threat.

But despite the challenges, there is wide support in Iraq to strengthen relations with Turkiye, driven by the belief that ties with the neighbouring country remain important and serve Iraq’s national interests.

“There is a strong Iraqi desire to deepen relations with Turkiye in many aspects, especially in oil as Turkiye becomes one of the most important countries in the region in terms of transit routes for exporting oil to Europe and the rest of the world,” said Issam al-Faily, a political science professor.

“The problem lies in the nature of the Iraqi political climate, which is affected by the ongoing power struggles. The covert Turkish–Iranian rivalry may be one of the reasons that could prevent al-Zaidi from achieving his aspirations in relations with Turkiye. He should balance these very critical issues, if he wants this visit to be successful,” added al-Faily.

Defence spending and support for Ukraine’s military needs are expected to top the agenda of summit in Turkish capital.

In Fox News interview, Israeli prime minister lauds US alliance and argues that Ankara should not receive F-35 jets.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says his ties with US President Donald Trump are “fine”, dismissing reports of rifts between the two leaders over the ceasefire with Iran and Israel’s attacks in Lebanon.

In an interview with Fox News on Monday, Netanyahu heaped praise on the United States and Trump.

“America has been a tremendous force for good, and without America, there won’t be any democracy in the world, and there won’t be any freedom in the world,” he said.

The Israeli prime minister added that he and Trump see eye to eye on “just about everything”.

His comments come amid criticism by some members of the Israeli cabinet of the memorandum of understanding between the US and Iran that calls for a regional ceasefire, including in Lebanon.

Israel has refused to withdraw from Lebanon, insisting that it has the right to bomb the country at any time to respond to “threats”. An Israeli strike in southern Lebanon on Monday killed four civilians, including a teacher.

Netanyahu said there can be differences between the US and Israel, but the two countries are “model allies”.

“My relationship with the president is fine, and we have a way of ironing out our differences as allies who respect each other,” he said.

The prime minister confirmed he will soon visit the US again, but said no date has been set for the trip.

Asked about his agenda during the visit, Netanyahu took aim at Turkiye, saying that he will lobby against the transfer of F-35 jets to Ankara.

“I don’t think they should be given F-35s or the engines for their fighter jets because that’ll upset the power balance in the Middle East, which is ultimately guaranteed by Israeli air superiority, and also by, I think, by America’s posture in the Middle East,” he said.

Turkiye, a NATO ally of the US, has been an outspoken critic of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.

Trump is set to visit Ankara later this week for a NATO summit.

Netanyahu attempted to draw a contrast between Israel and Turkiye.

“They didn’t lift a finger to help you in Iran. We did,” he told Fox News, a conservative US media network mostly watched by Trump voters. “We’re the model ally that fought next to your great soldiers.”

Netanyahu has called for the US to attack Iran for decades, leading to the US-Israel war on Iran that broke out on February 28, which proved to be overwhelmingly unpopular with American voters.

Some Israeli commentators and politicians have been escalating rhetoric against Turkiye, suggesting that the country is the next regional rival and target after Iran.

Turkiye’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned on Saturday against Israel’s efforts to undermine the US-Iran agreement.

“We are closely following the Israeli administration’s attempts to dynamite the deal,” he said. “The current war-addicted Israeli government must not be allowed to drown our geography in the smell of gunpowder and blood again.”

Thousands of Kurds in Turkiye rallied to demand the release of PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan and other prisoners. Ocalan has been imprisoned since 1999 for leading a decades-long armed insurgency against the Turkish state. The PKK and Ocalan renounced any armed struggle against Turkiye last year.

A number of players submitted visa applications in person at the US embassy in Ankara ahead of their training camp.

Iran’s football team have attended visa appointments in Turkiye ahead of the World Cup, with the whole squad applying for Canadian visas and some players also submitting applications for entry into the United States.

A number of players submitted applications in the Turkish capital Ankara on Thursday, an Iranian football federation official told Reuters news agency.

The whole squad attended appointments for Canadian visas, while some players who had not applied for American visas before the US and Israel attacked Iran in February also submitted their visa applications in person at the embassy.

Some foreign-based Iranian players joined the squad in Ankara before later travelling to the team’s training camp in Antalya on Turkiye’s Mediterranean coast, the official said.

The World Cup will ⁠⁠be cohosted by the US, Canada and Mexico, with Iran due to play all three of their group-stage matches on the US West Coast.

Iran are scheduled to face New Zealand on June 15 and Belgium on June 21 in Los Angeles before taking on Egypt in Seattle five days later. They would require access to Canada if they progress to the knockout rounds.

Iran is holding a pre-tournament camp in Turkiye following the suspension of the Iranian domestic league in March, leaving many players short of match fitness.

The team trained in Antalya earlier this week as coach Amir Ghalenoei attempted to prepare his squad after most domestic-based players went seven weeks without competitive football during the suspension of the Iranian league.

Iran qualified early for the expanded 48-team World Cup, but preparations have been overshadowed by uncertainty over travel and security arrangements following the US-Israeli war on Iran.

Iran’s football federation had previously said US visa applications for the team would be handled in Turkiye after discussions with FIFA.

Iran are due to play Gambia in a friendly on May 29 before Ghalenoei names his final 26-man World Cup squad by FIFA’s June 1 deadline.