Remarks by Lieberman, an architect of a recent diplomatic scandal carried out by Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon, who publicly humiliated the Turkish ambassador in Tel Aviv, came on Tuesday at the start of a three-day visit to the Azerbaijani capital.
“Every week to sharply condemn Israel, to say Israeli military forces have carried out genocide, to call operations to protect our citizens ‘a crime against humanity.’ This sharp anti-Israeli line cannot be repeated every week,” Lieberman was quoted as saying by the English-language daily Haaretz.
“For 10 years we have supported very close and friendly relations with Turkey,” Lieberman said. “The recent changes in Turkey’s foreign policy concepts were unexpected to us and not entirely clear. We are doing everything we can in order to preserve relations at their previous, very trustful level and to maintain close cooperation in all areas.”
Weeks after Israel’s deputy foreign minister angered Turkey by summoning Ankara’s ambassador for a humiliating public reprimand, a report by the Israeli Foreign Ministry’s Center for Political Research released in late January accused Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of fueling anti-Semitism with his criticism of Israel.
In response to the report and in reference to the ongoing humanitarian tragedy in Gaza since last winter’s devastating offensive by Israel, Erdoğan recently said: “I am telling the truth and I will keep telling the truth. Turkey is a state which has a centuries-old history. When you talk to such a state you must be careful. When innocent civilians are ruthlessly killed, struck by phosphorus bombs, the infrastructure is destroyed by bombs and people are forced to live in an open-air prison, we cannot see this as compatible with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and we cannot close our eyes to all this happening.”
In Baku, Lieberman said, “We hope that Turkey from its side will make certain amendments to its foreign policy concept.”
