Turkish Israeli Spats

Turkey summons Israeli ambassador over spat  Chinaview.com 12Jan10

ANKARA, Jan. 12 (Xinhua) -- Turkish Foreign Ministry summoned the Israeli ambassador on Tuesday for an explanation of Israel's recent criticism of Turkey, Turkish media reported.

    Turkey's Foreign Ministry Undersecretary Feridun Sinirlioglu has asked Ambassador Gaby Levy about Israeli Foreign Ministry's condemnation of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's remarks on Israel's offensive against the Gaza Strip, the semi-official Anatolia news agency reported.

    Erdogan on Monday hit out at Israel for violating UN resolutions by launching military operations against the Gaza Strip. He also called on the international community to impose pressure on Israel for its possession of nuclear weapons.

    In response to Erdogan's remarks, Israeli Foreign Ministry issued a statement, saying Israel respected Turkey and was interested in maintaining normal relations between the two states but expected the Turkish side to reciprocate with a similar approach.

    During Tuesday's meeting, Sinirlioglu also expressed uneasiness over Israel's treatment of Turkish Ambassador to Israel Oguz Celikkol, who was summoned Monday by Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon, the Turkish newspaper Hurriyet Daily News reported on its website.

    Ayalon made Celikkol sit on a sofa lower than his own chair and had no Turkish flags displayed during their meeting when he criticized a Turkish TV series called "The Valley of The Wolves," the newspaper said.

    Israeli diplomats said the series, which depicted Israeli security forces kidnapping children and shooting old men, contained anti-Israel messages, according to the newspaper.

    Relations between Turkey and Israel began to sour in December 2008, when Israel launched an offensive in the Gaza Strip.

    In a rare move to protest the 22-day operation, Erdogan stormed out of a debate with Israeli President Shimon Peres at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland in January 2009.

    Turkey banned Israel from participating in a NATO air force drill in October and later refused to censure a fictional television program that features Israelis killing Palestinians

 

Israeli-Turkish relations in hot water again over Israel's dramatic summoning meeting 12jan10

JERUSALEM, Jan. 12 (Xinhua) -- The relations between Israel and Turkey raised eyeballs again on Tuesday after the two traded barbs and Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Daniel Ayalon conducted a dramatic summoning meeting with Turkish ambassador to Israel.

    Ayalon called the ambassador Ahmet Oguz Celikkol to a parliament office, instead of his office in Foreign Ministry, on Monday, to express Israeli discontentment over a recent Turkish TVdrama which portrays Israeli intelligence agent as baby-kidnaper.

    At the beginning of the meeting, Ayalon was caught by camera tourge the photographers to pay attention that he and his assistants were sitting in higher chairs than the Turkish ambassador and there was only Israeli flag on the table.

    The meeting has become the focus of the headlines of Israeli media on Tuesday and is seen as intentional humiliation to the Turkish ambassador by many Israelis.

    Israeli Minister of Industry, Trade and Labor Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, who made a relations-mending visit to Turkey in November, on Tuesday criticized Ayalon's behavior.

    "The Turkish ambassador's dignity should have been maintained. We have no interest in adding Turkey to the hostile countries," Ben-Eliezer told local news service Ynet from India where he is inan official visit.

    In an apparent explanation, Ayalon was quoted by local daily The Jerusalem Post as saying that the detailed arrangement of the meeting with Celikkol was planned by him and Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, and he "didn't want to humiliate him (the ambassador), but merely to convey a message."

    Also on Monday, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused Israel of violating Palestinian airspace and territorial waters during a joint press conference with visiting Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri, slashing Israel's recent air strikes on the Gaza Strip.

    Erdogan's comments were followed by a protest statement of Israeli Foreign Ministry, which says "Israel has the full right to defend its citizens."

    All these added a new weight on the already-strained bilateral relations due to Israel's military offensive in the Gaza Strip last winter.

    The Turkish government has strongly condemned the offensive, and Turkish military in October banned Israeli air force to join a planned international air force exercise in Turkey reportedly due to Ankara's opposition to Israeli operation in Gaza.

    There were some positive signs emerging between the two countries after Ben-Eliezer's visit to Turkey, and Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak is scheduled to travel to Ankara next week as another effort to amend the relations, which has been on the up and down for more than a decade and saw booming bilateral trade before the Gaza conflict.

    It remains largely unclear how Barak's visit will come after Monday's meeting in Jerusalem. Turkish Foreign Ministry has summoned Israeli Ambassador in Ankara, Gabby Levy, for clarification on Tuesday, Israeli media reported.