Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday the world is facing a deepening crisis in both power and direction, warning that the international system has reached a “serious and dangerous threshold”. Speaking at the opening ceremony of the Antalya Diplomacy Forum 2026, Erdogan said global mechanisms tasked with protecting human rights and security have remained ineffective, and at times indifferent, in the face of major crises.
He described the current turmoil as “primarily a moral and existential crisis”, pointing to developments in Gaza following the events of October 7 as evidence of the scale of the breakdown. “Reading what is happening in Gaza merely as a humanitarian tragedy would be incomplete,” Erdogan said, adding that the situation reveals the limits of the current international order.
He also criticised the global system’s response to conflicts across the region, saying it has failed “the most basic test of humanity” in places such as Syria, Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon.