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Tension is Ankara’s choice, says Israel’s Netanyahu
“It was not our choice that our relations with Turkey got tense,” Netanyahu told Greek newspaper To Vima. “Everything began when [Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip] Erdoğan attacked Israeli President Shimon Peres in Davos. There was a clear policy on the part of Ankara to spark tensions. This is their choice,” he went on to say.
Relations between Turkey and Israel took a nosedive in a series of diplomatic crises following Erdoğan’s Davos walkout. Erdoğan stormed off a World Economic Forum panel in Davos in 2009 following a heated exchange with Peres over a deadly Israeli offensive in Gaza. The three-week operation in December 2008-January 2009 left about 1,400 Palestinians dead.
Already strained relations between the former allies hit the lowest point over the Gaza flotilla incident, where Israeli naval commandos shot to death eight Turkish and one Turkish-American activists during a raid on an international aid flotilla trying to break the blockade of Gaza on May 31. Turkey recalled its ambassador to Israel following the event and relations were reduced to a minimum since the incident. Turkey demands an apology, while Israel refuses, claiming that its soldiers acted in self-defense. Turkey and Israel, as well as the UN, are conducting national investigations into the raid.
Netanyahu left the door for recovery in ties open, saying in the interview that “if Turkey decides to follow a way of being a moderate state, [Israel] will welcome it.”
As relations with Turkey deteriorated, Netanyahu paid a visit to Greece last week, discussing ways to expand economic, political and military cooperation between the two countries. His visit came a month after a groundbreaking visit to Israel by Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou.
Asked if the recent rapprochement between Athens and Tel Aviv has anything to do with Israel’s collapsed relations with Turkey, Netanyahu said relations with Greece would improve irrespective of other developments. He said worsening relations with Turkey could not eradicate Israel’s hopes to improve its ties with the Aegean state. The Israeli prime minister said he had discussed the expansion of Israeli-Greek ties with Papandreou in a previous meeting in Moscow.
The Israeli leader also said Israel and Greece agreed on several cooperation deals in the military arena during his visit to Athens but declined to provide further details.
Relations between Greece and Turkey have traditionally been tense, and the two countries came to the brink of war on several occasions in the late 20th century. In recent years they have improved greatly, but old rivalries linger.
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