UPDATE - Geopolitical risks that began with Gaza genocide were made worse by Israel’s regional attacks: Turkish president

ADDS MORE COMMENTS FROM PRESIDENT ERDOGAN; REVISES HEADLINE

By Asiye Latife Yilmaz and Gokhan Ergocun

ISTANBUL (AA) – The geopolitical risks that began with the genocide in Gaza have clearly risen with Israel's attacks on Lebanon, Yemen, Iran, and Syria, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Friday.

“As new schemes unfold in our region, our state wisdom requires Türkiye to take determined steps to disrupt these plots,” Erdogan told a meeting in Istanbul of the Foreign Economic Relations Board of Türkiye.

Türkiye is becoming a sought-after actor wherever sides sit down to seek peace, he added.

Erdogan said: "We are neither silent in the face of oppression nor chasing after adventures.

"For Türkiye, for all its 86 million people, for the oppressed who have turned towards our country, we are resolutely implementing what is right."

Türkiye has done what is right in its neighbor Syria, for over a dozen years of civil war and its aftermath, since day one of the Russia-Ukraine war, and in response to Israel's attacks on Iran, Yemen, and Lebanon, he said.

Türkiye has done this by cutting off commercial ties with Israel in response to the Gaza genocide, and also while developing ties with its brotherly countries in the Gulf, he added.

"From Libya to Karabakh, wherever we were needed, we did this," he said, referring to a once-occupied region of the Caucasus that in recent years was liberated by its rightful owner, Azerbaijan.

- Record trade figures

On the economic front, he said very important data on the Turkish economy was recently announced, adding: "We once again broke foreign trade records. On March 28, we broke the daily goods export record with $2.064 billion.

"In July, we achieved the highest monthly goods exports in the history of the republic with $25 billion."

The trade deficit has dropped to its lowest level in the past nine months, he said.

The president stressed that last year per capita income rose to $15,463 and then to $15,971 in the first quarter of 2025, saying: "Our gross national product has topped $1 trillion for the first time, reaching $1.37 trillion in the first quarter of 2025.”