In Turkey, the topic of the state’s complicity in Azerbaijan’s oil sales to Israel is heating up.
Over the last few months, activists have taken to the streets of Istanbul, calling out Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s involvement and inaction on Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
Now, two Palestinian activists face deportation for holding up an anti-government banner in the audience during a talk show on Turkish public television broadcaster, TRT News on August 24.
The activists, part of a group called 1000 Youth for Palestine, along with two Turkish activists, were arrested in Istanbul three days later and sent directly to deportation centres.
The banner that was the reason for the arrest said, “Erdoğan stop feeding oil to Zionists! End complicity in genocide!”
The activists were arrested on charges of “insulting the president under” under Article 299.
Intervention from Palestinian activists
At the centre of the protests is the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline, through which oil from SOCAR, the state-owned oil company of Azerbaijan, runs through Georgia to Turkey’s Cehyan port, from where it is shipped to Haifa.
According to a recent report by Oil Change International, Azerbaijan supplied Israel with 40% of its crude oil between October 2023 and July 2024.
The protesters are demanding that Turkey immediately cease its involvement in the pipeline.
According to the arrested activists’ lawyer, Yusuf Akşeker, while the Palestinian activists were sent to the deportation centre, the two Turkish activists were released after giving their testimonies.
Even though the activists were allowed to leave the centre after two days the police investigation into their actions is still ongoing, with deportation a possibility.
“We think we will win, but it will take one or two years,” says Akşeker.
“But the psychological impact on the activists is that they will not want to take political action or demonstrate because they are in danger of deportation,” he added.
1000 Youth for Palestine describes itself as “a youth movement standing in solidarity to amplify the voice of the Palestinian intifada, which resisted over a century of Zionist occupation, exploitation, oppression, and violence. The 1000 Youth for Palestine movement seeks to establish an anti-imperialist front in Turkey, expose the local collaborators who sustain Zionism, and publicize the call to sever all ties with the occupying entity. Our mission is to forge a collective struggle against Zionism and imperialism.”
The group has held regular protests around Turkey since it was established in January this year, including in Istanbul, Bursa and Ankara.
Some of these include rallies at the headquarters of SOCAR, Zorlu Holdings, which owns three power plants in Israel, outside the German, Israeli and Azerbaijani consulates, İÇDAŞ, Turkish energy, iron and steel, shipbuilding conglomerate that provides 25% of Israel’s steel, the headquarters of Limak, which owns the port from which ships leave for Haifa, and BOTAŞ which transports oil from the BTC pipeline to Israel.
They have held vigils and disrupted major events like President Erdoğan’s Great Ankara Rally and Sultanbeyli Rally, while also holding protests at universities.
Turkey's two faces
This is not the first time activists from 1000 Youth for Palestine have been arrested. In March the group protested outside the Istanbul offices of SOCAR, by painting the walls and breaking down the doors to enter the building.
Two days later, the police arrested 13 members of the group, against whom police cases are still open.
After a protest on Palestinian Land Day, several activists were arrested and spent two months in jail, also on charges of “insulting the president.”
The only response on the issue from the Turkish government regarding oil trade with Israel has been during a television interview with the Minister of Energy and Natural Resources, Alparslan Bayraktar, explaining that Turkey could not control the destinations of the ships leaving the country’s ports and that since BP is operating the pipeline, it cannot control which oil enters the port.
Şeyma Altundal, an activist with 1000 Youth for Palestine says that Palestinians and other migrants face more severe repercussions if they are arrested.
“Detention centres in Turkey are like jails and laws on migrants are really unjust,” she says.
“When Turkish activists are arrested we will be released eventually, but deportation is a totally different threat. The laws don’t apply equally to everyone.
"The government is trying to threaten and scare us because we are exposing the reality, and since the truth will always prevail, they are trying to manipulate it, and hide it by silencing and oppressing us,” she adds.
Altundal points out that Turkey has two faces when it comes to Palestine.
“Erdoğan shouts at Western countries’ imperialism about Israel but hasn’t closed the NATO bases in Turkey that provide information to Israel’s army.
"Turkey is part of an imperialist, comprehensive chain that supports the Zionist entity through its institutions, in different spheres,” says Altundal.
Unwillingness to let go of the pipeline
Azerbaijan, on the other hand, has never been explicitly supportive of Palestine.
While the country is a member of the Organisation for Islamic Cooperation, it has not condemned Israel’s massacre in Gaza.
Baku-based journalist and independent analyst, Rovshan Mammadli says that state repression of protests in Azerbaijan is significant, and there is a de facto ban on all protests against Israel as Azerbaijan develops an increasingly closer link with the country.
Mammadli explains that this is partly attributed to Israel’s large supply of weaponry to Azerbaijan which it used during the Nagorno-Karabakh war with Armenia, and in which it was victorious, and suspicion of Iran which is shared by both countries.
Turkey has always supported Azerbaijan in its conflict with Armenia and was the first state to recognise Azerbaijan in 1991 upon its independence from the Soviet Union.
Mammadli adds, “Turkey’s political narrative is heavily in favour of Palestine, announcing it would cease all trade with the country in May this year.
"Simultaneously, it does not want to cut all ties with Israel and the United States, for whom the pipeline is very important, in the case that Palestine’s other neighbours do not take meaningful steps to support it.”
Even though Turkey supports Palestine, it doesn’t use its leverage as a crucial player in the pipeline over Azerbaijan and has no incentive to cut its crucial role in it.
“Turkey portrays itself as a supporter of the Palestinian cause, but it doesn’t like when activists try to do something that contradicts Turkey’s official policies, and put Turkey’s ties with Azerbaijan at risk,” explains Mammadli.
The former President of Azerbaijan, Heydar Aliyev, father of current President Ilham Aliyev, referred to Turkey and Azerbaijan as “one nation, two states.”
Altundal says, “We say two states, one genocide."
She added, “We need to go fight on the streets with the collaborators of Israel and we want Turkish activists to reach out to us. It’s not just about shouting Free Palestine, we want to contribute to actually doing it. Israel cannot survive alone.
"We want to cut every vein feeding Zionist occupiers from Turkey. While we feel sad for our brothers and sisters, we also need to direct our anger at those who are responsible and hold collaborators accountable in the name of Palestinians, just as we are learning from their resistance.”
Ilham Rawoot is a freelance writer based in Cape Town and Berlin. She has previously written for the New Internationalist, Al Jazeera and Africa is a Country, and focuses on climate justice and the extractive industry, Palestine and decolonial struggles
Follow her on X: @ilhamsta