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Relations with Turkey ‘test of maturity’ for Israel, says expert
The remarks by Levy, who heads the Middle East Task Force at the Washington-based New America Foundation, came at a conference held on Tuesday at the Washington office of the Ankara-based Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research (SETA).
Geoffrey Aronson, director of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, and Ufuk Ulutaş, SETA’s Middle East program director, also participated in the conference, which was moderated by SETA Washington representative Nuh Yılmaz and titled “Israel-Syria Peace Negotiations and Turkey’s Mediation.”
The last direct talks between Israel and Syria stalled in 2000 in a dispute over how much of the Golan Heights, which Israel captured in the 1967 war, should be returned to Syria. Peace efforts restarted in 2007 under Turkish auspices, and Turkey facilitated several rounds of indirect peace talks between Syria and Israel. Yet, soon after the start of the Gaza offensive, Syria said it had suspended talks with Israel and then-Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan said it was not possible to continue with peace efforts on the Israeli-Syrian track while war raged on along the Israeli-Palestinian track.
According to Levy, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may consider the continuation of a process that had started during the term of former-Prime Minister Ehud Olmert as a “domestic political problem,” referring to the fact that Olmert was in charge during Turkey-mediated indirect talks.
At the moment, Turkey is considered by Israel to be a part of the “axis of evil” along with Iran and Syria, thus there is an overwhelming desire to “punish” Turkey, Levy said.
“Relations with Turkey are a test which will show the Israeli government’s level of maturity,” Levy said, while stressing that Turkey’s position in the region as a country becoming more and more democratic should not be ignored.
Yet the fact that Israel is having difficulties in its relations with Turkey, which is more democratic than other regional countries, poses “worrying signs,” Levy added.
Aronson, meanwhile, drew a gloomy picture concerning Turkey’s capability as a mediator, suggesting that big powers should be dealing with mediation efforts, since they have the necessary tools for directing the process. Both Aronson and Levy argued that the opposition of the then-US administration to the indirect talks mediated by Turkey between Israel and Syria led to failure of the process.
For his part, Ulutaş said he considered the tension in relations between Israel and Turkey “temporary,” while also saying that Turkey’s leverage in Israel and Syria was stronger than France, whose leader Nicolas Sarkozy recently attempted to bring the leaders of Israel and Syria together in Paris in an attempt to revive the peace process between the two countries.
Meanwhile, it was announced that SETA’s Washington office was expecting to host Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for a speech during his official visit to Washington in early December.
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