00:00James, is this a logical move from Israel or is it provocative?
00:08Again, it's in the eye of the beholder.
00:12Give us your expert opinion.
00:14As someone who's worked as an ambassador in that region, I mean, is it destabilizing?
00:20Can we expect a reaction?
00:23I wouldn't advise my government to do this.
00:25And the reason is that it's opposed by many countries in the Middle East and Turkey, we can leave aside the Europeans, who represent serious security benefits or possible problems for Israel.
00:48For what I don't see is a significant security benefit.
00:53But again, the Israelis can decide on that.
00:57But more importantly, the issue that we haven't talked about so far is how President Trump sees all of this on a day that he's meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu.
01:06Most of the signaling I've gotten is that they are concerned about the net sum of these Israeli actions.
01:16They want Israel to have better relations with the Gulf states, with Jordan and Egypt.
01:20They certainly want to have better Israeli-Turkish relations because Turkey is not only important and is acting to some degree on the U.S. request to deal with Hamas on the Gaza issue.
01:35It's important for the stabilization of Syria and thus to keep Iran from reemerging the Shia Crescent.
01:42And it also is critically important for the Ukraine war and for the Caucasus.
01:48These are all hugely important areas for the Trump administration.
01:52And Turkey is the first or second address in most of them.
01:56That has to be taken into consideration, too.
01:58But I don't think that Somaliland I worry less about than other Israeli moves, as I said, in the eastern Mediterranean that really do impact with the SDF,
02:14that impact in a serious way Turkey's correct view of its own security.
02:18Butìš” has to...
02:20But it also has to be the same information as we saw.
02:32So be careful to feel that the U.S. President is the first user of Israel.
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