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Ankara presses for CICA to condemn Israel’s attack on aid flotilla
Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, China, Egypt, India, Iran, Israel, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Pakistan, Palestine, Republic of Korea, Russia, Tajikistan, Thailand, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and Uzbekistan are members of the conference. The members represent a region where throughout history there have been numerous hostilities between members.
On the first day of the summit, Israel sent a diplomat from its consulate rather than expose a more senior figure to the fury over last week's killings, while today it is expected to be represented by its ambassador in Ankara, Gabby Levy. Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Dan Meridor, who originally planned to represent his country at the summit, canceled -- at Shin Bet's, the Israeli security agency, recommendation, according to Israeli media.
Ankara believes that the CICA -- with its goal of building security and cooperation in Asia -- is similar to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and can be dubbed “the OSCE of Asia.”
“If an incident like the May 31 illegal attack had happened in, for example, Hungary, then it would be assumed that the OSCE would react appropriately to the incident. In this case, we seek CICA members’ unity in condemning the Israeli attack,” a senior Turkish diplomat told Today’s Zaman.
“Then, this condemnation will probably be issued in the form of a presidential statement,” the same diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said when asked by Today’s Zaman if CICA member Israel would opposed the release of such a statement by the 20-nation security body.
Following yesterday’s ministerial-level gathering, the summit will be attended by heads of state and government such as Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
As of yesterday, on the sidelines of the summit, President Abdullah Gül had bilateral meetings with Abbas, Ahmadinejad, Aliyev, al-Assad and Ali Abdussalam Treki, the president of the 64th General Assembly of the United Nations, in addition to Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, whose country held the presidency of the forum since it was established in 1993 until handing it over to Turkey at the İstanbul summit.
Also yesterday, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan had bilateral meetings with Aliyev, Assad, Abbas, Karzai and Nazarbayev as well as with Iraqi Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi.
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