“If the Syrians want to talk, let them talk to us only in a face-to-face meeting,” Lieberman said in an address to about 100 Israeli diplomats in Jerusalem on Sunday, according to reports in the Israeli media. “So long as I am foreign minister and Yisrael Beiteinu is in the government, there will be no Turkish mediation,” he added, referring to his hard-line party. “The Syrians want to talk? Then direct negotiations, only.”
Lieberman’s remarks put him at odds with Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Industry, Trade and Labor Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, who called for the resumption of Turkish mediation during a visit to Ankara last month. Lieberman accused Barak and Ben-Eliezer of “proposing and hinting that there is place for Turkish mediation.”
“Stop creating illusions and disseminating things that have no connection to reality,” Lieberman was quoted as saying by the Haaretz newspaper. “If you think that after [Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip] Erdoğan’s comments [about Israel] we would agree to Turkish mediation, even if it meant smiles and visits, forget about it.”
