Madrid, February 22: An Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities would be a “disaster of unpredictable consequences”, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned in an interview published Monday.
“We have to find a solution through diplomatic means,” he told the leading Spanish daily El Pais. “We must not leave the negotiating table.”
Israel this month raised the possibility of using force against Iran.
Asked about the possibility of an Israeli strike, Erdogan said it would be cause “a disaster in the region, a disaster of unpredictable consequences. It would be something unthinkable which I don’t even want to imagine.”
Erdogan also said he has had no direct contact with hardline Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Relations between Turkey and Israel have deteriorated since the Jewish state’s 22-day offensive against Gaza that ended in January last year.
Turkey, which has good relations with its neighbour Iran, has offered to host an exchange of Iran’s low-enriched uranium (LEU) with 20 percent enriched uranium to be supplied by world powers to Tehran as part of a UN-drafted deal.
Tehran and world powers are locked in a stalemate over the UN-drafted deal which envisages shipping out Iran’s LEU to France and Russia for further conversion into higher-grade uranium.
Erdogan, who is to hold talks with Spain’s Socialist Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero in Madrid later Monday, also blasted French and German resistance to Turkey’s entry into the European Union.
“What France and Germany are doing with us is not right. They are changing the rules in the middle of the game,” he said.
“They are imposing conditions that are not part of European norms so that we cannot enter the EU.”
He said Turkey is already part of the EU in an “unofficial capacity” as there are “five million Turkish citizens in Europe”.
The EU began membership talks with Turkey in 2005 but the process has made slow progress due in part to opposition from some countries, particularly France and Germany, which are concerned about a predominantly Muslim country of 71 million people joining the bloc.
—Agencies