[Event of the week]
Israel apologizes after insulting Turkish ambassador

After Ankara demanded an apology on Tuesday over Çelikkol’s treatment on Monday, Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon issued a statement conceding that his behavior toward Çelikkol had been inappropriate. While Ayalon stopped short of using the word, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described the statement as an “apology” and said he was glad that it had been made. But President Gül appeared not to see it that way. “If the problem is not resolved by tonight, our ambassador will take the first flight on Thursday to return home for further consultations,” Gül vowed, speaking to reporters during a reception on Wednesday. Gül stressed that it was up to Israeli leadership to defuse the tension.

“We will evaluate the case later,” he said, hinting that Turkey might be lowering its representation in Tel Aviv to the level of charge d’affaires.

President Gül described the insult to the Turkish ambassador as “unacceptable” and called on the Israeli higher leadership to rectify the situation. “It may have been the act of a man who did not know what he was doing,” he said, “however, in the final analysis the responsibility lies with the Israeli government.” “Israel is responsible here,” he added. Asked why Turkey is having problems with Israel while enjoying very good relations with all its other neighbors, Gül said the question should be directed to the Israeli side.

At the end of a packed, five-day brainstorming conference held in Ankara, senior Turkish diplomats travelled to Mardin with their maestro, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu, to underline the need for a fresh philosophical approach to creating a new international order based on respect for multiculturalism and the equality of all humanity. “Due to our jobs, many Turkish ambassadors and diplomats abroad, including myself, cannot visit Anatolia too much. From now on, we are going to pay more attention to our people and listen to their foreign policy perceptions,” he said.

Jan. 10 Sunday

The Viva Palestina international aid convoy experienced new crises and problems since it left Gaza to return home. Egyptian police attempted to detain five people who were engaged in skirmishes in the port city of El Arish at Cairo International Airport. In response, some passengers in the terminal building protested the police while others voiced statements of support aboard the plane. A total of 322 people, including 98 foreigners, arrived in İstanbul after a six-hour delay.

Even though the global financial downturn hit the tourism sector full force, 24.45 million tourists visited Turkey in 2009, representing a drop of only 1.89 million from 2008, data from the Interior Ministry and Culture and Tourism Ministry showed.

Jan. 11 Monday

In an event that has brought to the agenda again the dangers threatening children working the streets, a 5-year-old, Bedrettin K., was beaten and tortured by a group of youths for selling tissues in “their zone.” A pair of street sweepers stumbled across a shocking scene while clearing trash -- the bloody, unconscious body of a young boy who was badly beaten, tortured and dumped near a bus stop. The child was taken to the Okmeydanı Teaching and Research Hospital, where initial examinations revealed that the child suffered deep cuts to one of his hands and an ear, in addition to a black eye and various bruises and cuts elsewhere on his body.

Greek and Turkish Cypriot leaders on the ethnically divided island of Cyprus launched a new round of intensified talks, aimed at paving the way for a potential peace deal this year; yet prospects seem dim for a positive outcome as the Greek side has recently rejected a package proposal on governance and power-sharing floated by the Turkish side. Greek Cypriot leader Dimitris Christofias and Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat started six daylong sessions, hoping to overcome obstacles that had hindered progress during 60 meetings over the past 16 months.

Turkey and Lebanon signed an agreement to remove visa requirements for their nationals in a bid to boost trade, tourism and economic cooperation.

The two countries signed five other deals on cooperation in the areas of health, agriculture, military ties, transportation and education, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced following talks with his Lebanese counterpart, Saad Hariri.

A group of people, including deputies and representatives of NGOs in Manisa who visited several displaced Roma families that recently moved from the Selendi district of the western province of Manisa to its Gördes district after violence targeting them broke out, failed to convince the families to return to Selendi. Forty-eight Roma from 13 families were forced to leave Selendi, where they had lived for many years, after clashes erupted between the district’s Roma and other locals last week. Twenty-eight people from the group moved to Gördes and later on to Salihli, also in Manisa.

İstanbul is among the provinces with the lowest risk of unemployment in Turkey, a recent survey revealed. A study conducted jointly by Hacettepe University and the Turkish Employment Organization (İŞKUR) found that İstanbul is among the four provinces with the lowest risk of unemployment in Turkey. Other provinces in the same position as İstanbul are Bilecik, Edirne and Antalya.

Prime Minister Erdoğan won the 2010 King Faisal International Prize (KFIP) for service to Islam. KFIP Secretary-General Abdullah Al-Othaimeen announced that Erdoğan’s achievements have set an example of judicious leadership in the Islamic world. According to the secretary-general, the Turkish prime minister has forged a major campaign that placed Turkey among the world’s leading countries, economically and industrially.

Jan. 12 Tuesday

The government’s democratic initiative, launched late last summer, which seeks to address the Kurdish question by expanding the rights of Kurds, will continue and will include other minorities and groups, Prime Minister Erdoğan said.

Troubled relations with Israel hit a new low when an Israeli protest against a Turkish television series crossed the boundaries of diplomatic civility and turned into an insult against Ambassador Oğuz Çelikkol, in a scene that appeared to be the design of hawkish Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman. The incident started when Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon summoned Çelikkol to the Knesset on Monday afternoon to express outrage over an episode of the popular Turkish television series, “Valley of the Wolves: Ambush.” During the photo-op at the start of the meeting, Ayalon reportedly told the photographers in Hebrew: “Pay attention that he is sitting in a lower chair and we are in the higher ones, that there is only an Israeli flag on the table and that we are not smiling.”

Jan. 13 Wednesday

A Diyarbakır court prohibited Mayor Osman Baydemir from leaving the country in connection with the operation against the Kurdish Communities Union (KCK), an organization that allegedly functions as the urban arm of the terrorist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). Baydemir, who was subpoenaed to give testimony at the Special Prosecutor’s Office in Diyarbakır, gave a five-hour deposition.

The pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) is the only force that can ensure a solution to Turkey’s long-standing Kurdish problem, and the party views its support of and attention to the government’s democratic initiative to find a solution as a historic duty, BDP head Demir Çelik said. Çelik’s comments came ahead of the BDP’s “Democratic Participation for Democratic Politics” meeting at the Kızılay Mola Hotel, which was closed to the press.

Prime Minister Erdoğan said relations between Turkey and Russia reached a high point and noted that the countries have the potential to complete many projects jointly. “There are many projects Turkey and Russia can realize together as two important actors in the world,” Erdoğan said during his meeting with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in Moscow.

The total number of passengers who flew via Turkish Airlines (THY) increased by 11 percent in 2009 over the previous year to reach 25.1 million, the company announced.

Turkey and Russia came closer to building a strategic partnership by agreeing to deepen cooperation in the area of energy and work on a plan to eliminate visa requirements for their citizens. “Our relations are developing and becoming more diversified in the political, military, economic and cultural spheres. What is exciting for me is that both sides have the will” to further boost ties, Prime Minister Erdoğan said at a joint press conference with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin.

Jan. 14 Thursday

Three of the six people recently detained in a police operation targeting KCK members in the eastern province of Bingöl were arrested. In Van, 21 university students who were detained earlier this week for trying to force other students to join the KCK were referred to court after health checks at the Van Education and Research Hospital.

The Turkish economy minister announced he would not participate in this year’s World Economic Forum (WEF), held in Davos, Switzerland. “I have participated in Davos for the last seven years, and I have decided not to go this time,” Ali Babacan told reporters at a press conference.

Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Ayalon’s discourteous treatment of Turkey’s ambassador to the country reflected the “mistake of one man, not of the state,” Israeli President Shimon Peres said. “It was not diplomatic ... and it’s good that he apologized. This should not be connected to the whole state or to all diplomats. We must learn not to do this again,” Peres was quoted as saying by the Haaretz daily.

The results of a recent opinion poll showed that the Turkish public is hesitant about ongoing government efforts for settlement of the decades-old Kurdish question through a massive initiative package, with only 38.7 percent of respondents lending support to the initiative. A full 53.8 percent of respondents said they do not support the initiative at all, while 7.4 percent said they did not have an opinion on it.

Digiturk won live broadcasting rights in a tender for the Turkish Soccer Federation’s (TFF) Super League matches for the next four years, amid a serious threat to its dominance in soccer broadcasting by Türk Telekom, which was looking to bolster its Internet and mobile subscribership by moving into the field of broadcasting.

Jan. 15 Friday

Interior Minister Beşir Atalay said Turkey is an open society and that even if there are forces that want to turn Turkey away from the road to democracy in the future, they will not be successful thanks to the steps Turkey is currently taking. Atalay, the coordinator of the government’s democratization initiative, speaking at a press conference held to brief the public on the timing of future steps for the initiative, also talked about recent discussions on whether Turkey is turning toward “civilian fascism” or a single party system.

The Turkish state and charity organizations rolled up their sleeves to extend a helping hand to Haiti, where tens of thousands of people are feared dead and many are believed to still be trapped alive under rubble after a magnitude 7.0 quake hit the capital of Port-au-Prince on Tuesday. The Prime Ministry General Directorate for Emergency Management announced that it would send a mobile hospital and humanitarian aid to Haiti.