Türkiye Signs Riyadh Statement Condemning Iran, Omitting US and Israeli Strikes
By Bosphorus News Geopolitics Desk
Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan signed a joint statement in Riyadh on 18-19 March with eleven Arab and Muslim-majority countries condemning Iran’s missile and drone attacks across the region. The communiqué called on Tehran to halt its strikes immediately, stop supporting affiliated armed groups in Arab states, and avoid threatening maritime security in the Strait of Hormuz and the Bab al-Mandab.
What drew attention in Ankara was not the condemnation itself, but the document’s silence on how the war began. The US-Israeli offensive launched on 28 February was not mentioned at all. Israel appeared only once in the text, in a separate passage on Lebanon.
That omission stood out because Turkish officials had spent the previous two weeks describing the conflict in broader terms. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on 2 March that the US-Israeli strikes constituted a “clear violation of international law.” In an interview with the Associated Press on 14 March, Fidan said Iran had felt “betrayed” after being attacked by the United States while talks with Washington were still under way. Türkiye also closed its airspace to American military aircraft.
Turkish Foreign Ministry sources had indicated before the Riyadh meeting that Fidan would repeat Türkiye’s opposition to the initial strikes on Iran, encourage Gulf states to keep diplomatic channels open, and maintain a line that criticised both the opening attack and Iran’s subsequent retaliation. The statement he signed in Riyadh reflected only one part of that position.
The atmosphere surrounding the meeting helps explain the pressure under which the document was finalised. As ministers gathered in Riyadh, phones at the venue received alerts warning of an incoming Iranian strike and instructing participants to move to shelters. Fidan received the same warning. NTV political commentator Kemal Öztürk, who was in Riyadh with the delegation, reported the incident live.
For the states in the room, the crisis was no longer something unfolding at a distance. They were meeting while under direct threat. That did not erase Türkiye’s earlier public position, but it did shape the language that emerged from the meeting.
The reaction in Türkiye was immediate. Journalist Gürkan Zengin wrote that the statement read as if Iran had attacked those countries without cause and argued that the absence of any reference to Washington amounted to a serious retreat. New Welfare Party deputy chairman Naim Öztürk called the outcome shameful. Brookings Institution analyst Aslı Aydıntaşbaş pointed to the text’s silence on Israel’s role as a clear departure from the more careful line Ankara had maintained since the war began.
Ankara has not defended Iran’s regional attacks. Turkish officials have repeatedly described strikes on Gulf states and critical routes as unacceptable. The criticism came from a different place. Erdoğan had publicly denounced the opening strikes as illegal. Fidan had described the war as beginning with an attack on Iran during active diplomacy. The Riyadh statement removed that sequence almost entirely.
That is what made the text politically costly at home. It left Türkiye attached to a communiqué that condemned Iran in categorical language while omitting the US and Israeli offensive that set the conflict in motion.