Thursday, September 8, 2011
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In order to see a better, bigger picture to understand the state of the tension between Turkey and Israel, perhaps we have to list a number of incidents and statements of the past few days.
Here is a cross section:
• Responding to Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdoğan’s accusation against Israel that the repair of the unmanned reconnaissance planes used by the Turkish army in the fight against the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, militants has been delayed for too long, Israeli defense sources said this was not on purpose.
• Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu inspected a naval unit and said his navy was a powerful and strategic arm of Israel; that was in response to Erdoğan’s statement a day before on more visible and aggressive patrolling of Turkish Navy in the international waters of the Mediterranean.
• Israeli Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz (of Netanyahu’s Likud) said his country would not apologize to Turkey for the Mavi Marmara raid in 2010 in which nine Turks were killed by Israeli soldiers, adding that the Gaza blockade is there to stay. Turkish Transportation Minister Binali Yıldırım said what Israel has done was not much different from what Somalia pirates have been doing.
• The issue was raised by Bulgarian Foreign Minister Nikolay Mladenov during his visit to Turkey’s European Union Affairs Minister Egemen Bağış in Ankara. Bağış reacted to Madenov’s “sit and talk” suggestion and said he believed that if nine Bulgarian civilians were killed by Israel, Bulgaria would have acted the same way. The Bulgarian minister’s reply was unpleasant to hear for Bağış; he said no Bulgarian citizens have tried to challenge a blockage in international waters.
• The U.S. ambassador to Ankara, Francis Ricciardone, made a statement in Turkish that the U.S. was waiting for the normalization of Turkish-Israeli relations, which is of crucial importance for the stability of the region. He also urged that the door for diplomacy should remain open.
• Erdoğan in the meantime, got an approval from the Arab League to address the forum during his visit to Egypt next week on the issue. Erdoğan lends great importance to his tour to Egypt, Libya and Tunisia, prior to his New York trip to join the General Assembly of the United Nations.
• Turkish President Abdullah Gül told journalists on his way to Russia where he joined the Global Policy Forum, that Israel was “ungrateful” to Turkey for the benefits it sought so far and has become “a burden” for its closest allies. Consolidating Erdoğan’s “spoiled boy” denouncement of Israel two days ago, Gül criticized the U.S. Congress for giving support to Netanyahu that the latter could not even enjoy in his own parliament.
Lastly, diplomatic sources point to Sept. 20, when the membership of Palestine as the 194th member in the U.N. will be voted on in New York. The sources see this date as another threshold regarding the tension between Turkey and Israel. The region is warming up dangerously.
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