Turkish FM Fidan: Israel has become ‘direct threat to global security,’ urges ‘collective response’

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan on Friday said that Israel has become a “direct threat to global security” and urged a “collective” international response, arguing growing instability can no longer be viewed through a purely regional lens.

Speaking at Oxford University on global reordering, Fidan said the world is experiencing not merely a geopolitical transition but a deeper transformation.

“What we are witnessing today is not a transition, but it’s rather a transformation,” he said, arguing states can no longer “outsource their security, their diplomacy or their strategic imagination.”

Referring to the Iran war, which began with US and Israeli strikes, Fidan said the conflict dealt “a heavy blow to global prosperity, security and stability.”

“Israel’s systemic threat to destabilize the region has exceeded local borders and now constitutes a direct threat to global security,” he said, adding that such actions “demand a collective response from the international community as a whole.”

Fidan also said “the distinction between regional and global crises has truly disappeared,” arguing that conflicts can no longer be treated as isolated.

He said such uncertainty has increased the relevance of middle powers, describing them as states with “strategic geography,” diplomatic reach and political will to produce outcomes.

Fidan pointed to Türkiye’s geographic position, institutional reach as a NATO member and EU candidate, and mediation efforts — from the Black Sea grain initiative to diplomacy in the Horn of Africa — as examples of Ankara’s role in crisis management.

He also called for global institutional reform and a regional order in the Middle East based on cooperation rather than “domination or submission,” advocating “regional solutions to regional problems by regional countries.”