 |
For Turkey, flotilla crisis with Israel a matter of ‘statehood’
Other measures, including Israeli moves to ease the embargo on the Gaza Strip and any international condemnation of Israel, will not help fix the dispute, Turkish officials say.
“Turkish-Israeli ties are important, and we want them to go back to normal,” said a senior Turkish diplomat during a meeting with journalists on Friday. But, in an assertive tone, he added that preserving Turkey’s credibility as a state is more important. “For a sovereign state, giving up on a matter like this requires giving up on its statehood,” he said, emphasizing that although measures in international platforms are important, the crisis with Israel was “bilateral.”
On the question of what measures Ankara is prepared to take and when, he kept his cards close to his chest, saying they will be shared with the public in due time -- a cautious response that appears to be a sign of ongoing negotiations between the two former regional allies. “But it will not take forever,” he said.
Ankara is demanding an apology and compensation after Israeli commandos killed eight Turks and one American on the aid ship Mavi Marmara, which had sailed from the Mediterranean coast of Antalya to break Israel’s internationally criticized Gaza blockade. But Israel appears reluctant, to say the least, to give any sort of apology at this stage, saying the bloodshed cannot be blamed solely on its soldiers. Those on the ship, says Israel, attacked the boarding commandos with knives and clubs, forcing them to use their weapons to defend themselves.
This account, however, does little to convince Ankara, which insists that nothing can justify boarding a foreign ship and attacking those on board in international waters, 72 miles off the Israeli territorial waters and 64 miles from where the Israeli naval blockade of Gaza begins.
The official also said the ship, part of an international flotilla, was not even headed to Gaza. It was, instead, headed to the south, to Egypt’s El-Arish port, which was one of the alternative destinations proposed in prior talks with Israeli and Egyptian authorities. Israeli authorities had proposed that the flotilla arrive in Israel’s Ashdod port, from where its humanitarian aid cargo would be delivered overland to Gaza. Hours before the Israeli raid, Turkish officials told the Israelis that they should act with restraint as they believe that the flotilla might avoid a direct trip to Gaza and that those on board were unlikely to resist in the event they were intercepted by Israeli forces. Sending armed commandos descending from helicopters appeared to be precisely what the Turkish government strictly advised against.
The Humanitarian Aid Foundation (İHH), the Turkish charity that owned the Mavi Marmara, was also given warnings “at a technical level” that a trip to Gaza would be dangerous, according to the official.
Israel has rejected a UN proposal to create an international team of investigators, in which Turkish and Israeli experts would also take part, and instead initiated an internal probe. For Turkey, no probe is necessary to establish Israel’s guilt, but still, accepting an international investigation could give Israel room for maneuvering to get itself out of the corner it has backed itself into.
In a move which some said was an accomplishment for Turkey, Israel also agreed to ease the embargo on Gaza after a wave of international calls to lift the blockade. “For the fate of Turkish-Israeli relations, this is a secondary issue,” the official said. “Before everything else, this is a bilateral matter.”
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| AMANDA PAUL |  |
||
| Ukraine: a lost country | |||
| MÜMTAZER TÜRKÖNE |  |
||
| The 52nd anniversary of May 27 | |||
| ABDULLAH BOZKURT |  |
||
| Turkey and Mexico: Distant yet so close | |||
| BERİL DEDEOĞLU |  |
||
| Yemen and beyond | |||
| ARZU KAYA URANLI |  |
||
| On Memorial Day a few words to make your day memorable | |||
| EMRE USLU |  |
||
| Are the Kurds mentally divorced from Turkey? | |||
| CUMALİ ÖNAL |  |
||
| Critical months for Egypt | |||
| DOĞU ERGİL |  |
||
| Qualities of power | |||
| YAVUZ BAYDAR |  |
||
| Qualm | |||
| GÖKHAN BACIK |  |
||
| Erdoğan, Gül and Davutoğlu: the inner bargain on Turkish foreign policy | |||
| JOOST LAGENDIJK |  |
||
| Europe can’t have it all. Or can it? | |||
| SEYFETTİN GÜRSEL |  |
||
| Poor-friendly economic growth and the AK Party | |||
| MELİH ARAT |  |
||
| Handmade | |||
| CHARLOTTE MCPHERSON |  |
||
| Missing women, missing opportunities | |||
| BERK ÇEKTİR |  |
||
| Changes to incentives for investment in Turkey | |||
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
