Ankara: No high-level visit to, from Israel before conditions are met

A news article titled “Turkey: We’re waiting for Netanyahu,” and published on Sunday by Ynetnews, an English-language Israeli online news portal, cited remarks by a senior Turkish Foreign Ministry official. The report suggested that the official claimed that if Israel successfully found a solution to the ongoing tension with Turkey in the aftermath of Israel’s May 31 raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla that left nine activists dead, “Turkey would gladly host Netanyahu on its territory.”

“When the time comes, if the crisis is resolved, this visit will be made possible. After all, Netanyahu has never visited Turkey,” the official was quoted as saying in “a conversation” with the Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth.

Yet, Ankara-based Turkish diplomatic sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, highlighted that the content of the news report and its title were “different from each other.” As mentioned in the report, there is no change in what Turkey demands from Israel for normalizing relations, the same diplomatic sources told the Anatolia news agency late on Sunday.

Following the May 31 incident, Israel has said the soldiers acted in self-defense after being attacked as they boarded the Mavi Marmara, one of the aid flotilla’s six vessels owned by a Turkish charity. Turkey, on the other hand, is demanding an apology from Israel and compensation for the families of the victims.

Recently, Turkish officials, including Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu, firmly ruled out suggestions that over the past couple of weeks Turkey has backed down from any of its demands. Turkey has demanded an international investigation into the incident, an official apology from Israel and compensation for the families of the nine victims.

Last Friday, speaking with a small group of journalists in the central Anatolian province of Konya while campaigning for the constitutional reform package to be voted on in a referendum on Sept. 12, Davutoğlu underlined that Turkey is still expecting the two remaining specific conditions to be fulfilled by Israel, as one of the conditions has already been fulfilled via an ongoing UN probe into the raid.

Draft apology victim of internal rift?

The same news report by Ynetnews also cited the senior Turkish official, saying, “The Turkish foreign minister and [Israeli] Industry, Trade and Labor Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer drafted a preliminary apology letter during a secret meeting in Brussels, but the effort was thwarted by another senior Israeli minister.”

The reported remarks were apparently referring to a secret meeting held in late June between Davutoğlu and Eliezer and which had caused a deep rift within the Israeli government. At the time, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman reacted furiously to reports of a secret meeting that took place without his prior knowledge. He said the way in which the meeting had been arranged had damaged his relationship with Netanyahu and undermined his authority.

The Ankara-based Turkish diplomatic sources, speaking with Anatolia, didn’t elaborate on the issue of a draft apology within the same report.

Meanwhile, news reports from Jerusalem on Sunday said that a national inquiry led by retired Supreme Court of Israel Justice Jacob Turkel has asked the country’s MOSSAD chief to detail any involvement in the Israeli commandos’ deadly operation on May 31.

In a letter sent by the Turkel Commission last Wednesday to MOSSAD Director Meir Dagan and revealed on Sunday, the commission asked what role the intelligence agency played in assisting the Israeli army in boarding one of the flotilla’s six vessels -- named the Mavi Marmara and owned by a Turkish charity.

Earlier this month, retired Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Maj. Gen. Giora Eiland, who had led an Israeli military probe into the raid, had reportedly told the Turkel Commission that if a MOSSAD agent had been present aboard the Turkish ship and relayed real-time information about its passengers and their plans to counter the soldiers with violence, the raid’s tragic results could have been avoided.