How did Turkey save Gilad Shalit?

İSMET BERKAN – iberkan@hurriyet.com.tr

There is no one who does not know about Gilad Shalit, the soldier for whose sake Israel turned Gaza upside down, killed thousands of people, including women and children, and turned Gaza into an open-air prison. In fact, maybe he has been the most innocent hero of this long and bloody game, or the victim, since the day he was kidnapped by Hamas.

After Hamas kidnapped Shalit and the Israeli army entered Gaza, only to fail at rescuing the soldier, Israel asked for mediation and assistance from Turkey.

And, even at that time, which was the end of 2006 and beginning of 2007, Turkey stepped in and talks were carried out with Hamas, with some progress achieved. But Israel has a habit; it does the same job together with a few countries. The fact that other countries were also involved did not make the negotiations any easier; on the contrary, they got tougher. Moreover, they became entangled. At this point, Turkey stepped out.

Turkey stepped out but Israel’s effort to save Gilad Shalit did not end until seven or eight months ago.

Some seven or eight months ago, at a time when Turkish-Israeli relations were not at its best, the Israeli government once more consulted Turkey and asked for help to save Shalit because they had reached a certain point in negotiations and once more the talks were deadlocked. Would Turkey help overcome this deadlock?

The subject was referred to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan by Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu. Erdoğan reacted very clearly to this demand: “This is a humanitarian issue; it has nothing to do with our Israeli politics or relations. Let us do whatever we can.”

With this directive, the Foreign Ministry stepped in. They wanted Israel to pass all the information it had to Ankara. Then it was understood that a Western European country’s representative had played a serious role in the negotiations carried out until that time.

That Western European came to Ankara. He met Davutoğlu and top level Foreign Ministry civil servants, conveyed all the information he had and explained the latest stage reached in the negotiations.

From that moment on, a tough negotiation period started with Hamas on one hand and with Israel on the other. The National Intelligence Organization (MİT) stepped in and met with MOSSAD, Hamas and Egyptian intelligence.

This shuttle diplomacy and secret meetings gradually bore fruit, the deadlocked situation in the negotiations ended and an advance was obtained.

On one side of the negotiation was Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal who resided in Syria, on the other side was Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and in the middle were Davutoğlu, the Foreign Ministry and MİT.

The subject on which the negotiations were about to be locked was whether 27 Hamas women were to be released. But later this issue was overcome and a few days ago Mashaal called Davutoğlu from Syria and told him the deal was struck. “If you do not have any objection, we will announce it in a few hours. I wanted you to know first,” he said. Davutoğlu said: “This is a totally humanitarian matter. We thank you for being helpful in this issue. The deal is also appropriate from our point of view.”

And after this talk, both Hamas and Israel announced the deal struck on Shalit.

İsmet Berkan is a columnist for daily Hürriyet in which this piece appeared Oct. 14. It was translated into English by the Daily News staff.