DUBAI (Al Arabiya)
Israel and Syria were close enough to reach a breakthrough in their relation after Turkey supported talks between the two countries in Istanbul in 2008, but the talks came to a complete halt after Israel attacked the Gaza strip in the same period, a newspaper reported on Saturday.
Ahmet Davutoglu, the Turkish foreign minister who was a key adviser to Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the prime minister, in 2008, told visiting delegations of European politicians in Istanbul that the three countries were close to finalize a breakthrough talks, but efforts fizzled into thin air as Israel attacked the Gaza Strip in December 2008, the UAE-based The National reported.
According to Davutoglu, the indirect talks between the Israelis and Syrians about the future of the Golan Heights, captured by Israel in the 1967 war, proceeded well in 2008.
The phone call was to take place at 11 o’clock
Ahmet Davutoglu, the Turkish foreign minister
Davutoglu said that he was at the time was residing in a hotel to shuttle between two hotels where the Syrian and Israeli delegations resided.
“We wanted to have the fifth round in the same hotel, and the sixth one on the same corridor,” he said.
The three countries were planning to have a joint meeting in Istanbul on December 29, 2008, he added.
“Only one word” was needed for a joint statement, he said. Two days before the planned meeting, a phone call was to occur between Olmert and Erdogan to finalize the last details.
“The phone call was to take place at 11 o’clock” on December 27, he said. “At 10.30, Israel attacked Gaza. They killed 148 people in one hour.”
Erdogan expressed his disappointment of Olmert, who had not mentioned the planned attack on Gaza during the visit.
In January 2009, Erdogan angrily stormed out of a panel debate with Shimon Peres, the Israeli president, at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland.
The Turkish-Israeli relations were further severed after Israeli soldiers killed nine Turkish activists on the aid-flotilla ship, Mavi Marmara, bound to Gaza in late May, 2010.
In October, the political and military leadership in Ankara passed a revision of the so-called National Security Policy Document, also known as the Red Book, covering Turkey’s main policy guideline of domestic and foreign threats, and referred to the regional “instability” created by Israel.
Davutoglu made it clear that his country was not ready to let the flotilla issue rest.
“What if nine NGO members had been killed by Iran?” he asked. “There must be justice in international relations. No one attacks Turkish citizens.”
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