ANKARA – Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday that he hoped U.S. President-elect Donald Trump will tell Israel to “stop” its war efforts, suggesting a good start would be halting U.S. arms support to Israel.

“Trump has made promises to end conflicts… We want that promise to be fulfilled and for Israel to be told to ‘stop’,” Erdogan told reporters on a return flight from Budapest, according to an official readout.

“Mr. Trump cutting off the arms support provided to Israel could be a good start in order to stop the Israeli aggression in Palestinian and Lebanese lands,” he was cited as saying.

Turkey has fiercely criticised Israel’s offensives in the Palestinian territory of Gaza and in Lebanon, and has halted trade with Israel as well as applied to join a genocide case against Israel at the World Court. Israel strongly denies the genocide accusations.

Trump’s presidency will seriously affect political and military balances in the Middle East region, Erdogan said, adding that pursuing current U.S. policies would deepen deadlock in the region and spread the conflict. REUTERS