Turkish Forum

Category: Business

  • Turkey’s “Economic Recovery” Raises Questions

    Turkey’s “Economic Recovery” Raises Questions

    Turkey’s “Economic Recovery” Raises Questions

    Publication: Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 7 Issue: 150

    August 4, 2010

    By Saban Kardas

    The Turkish Exporters’ Assembly (TIM) announced statistics on Turkish export figures in July 2010. Turkey exported around $9.5 billion in goods, which amounted to a 5.97 percent increase since July 2009. Between January and July 2010, its exports increased by 13.14 percent compared to the same period last year and reached $64.2 billion. Turkey’s leading export industries were in the automotive, textiles and chemicals sectors (www.tim.org.tr, August 1).

    The export trends are an important indicator in order to understand the Turkish government’s handling of the economy in the face of the global economic crisis. After coming to power in 2002, the governing Justice and Development Party (AKP) managed to stabilize the Turkish economy, which had suffered from a series of home-grown financial crises throughout the 1990’s and early 2000’s. The Turkish economy reported record growth rates under the AKP’s rule, with Turkish exports surpassing the important psychological threshold of $100 billion.

    However, the global financial crisis shattered this optimistic picture. Under pressure from a contracting global economy and weak domestic demand, Turkey’s production sector was badly hit, resulting in a hike in unemployment figures. With the lessons learned from earlier financial crises, however, Turkish financial institutions weathered the storm successfully. Ankara did not experience the collapse of the mortgage system or a credit crunch, and the Turkish banking sector grew even in those difficult conditions.

    Nonetheless, the Turkish government came under criticism for its economic policies. For skeptics, the government could not take effective measures to protect the economy, especially through its refusal to accept international assistance (EDM, April 2, 2009). Some Turkish business groups pressured the government to conclude a stand-by agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) so that it could serve as an anchor of stability and attract fresh loans to non-financial sectors. Others argued that Turkey could overcome financing problems independently without the IMF’s help. After many rounds of talks, Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, refused to sign a loan deal with the IMF, on the grounds that it would reduce Turkey’s flexibility to initiate appropriate measures. Instead, Erdogan’s government launched various stimulus packages to boost domestic demand and initiated a medium-term economic recovery plan (EDM, September 23, 2009).

    The government’s efforts helped revitalize industrial production, easing the effects of the crisis. For a healthy recovery, however, it was necessary to expand Turkey’s export volume, given the limitations of its domestic market to sustain industrial growth alone. The trends in exports are thus a key indicator to understand the fate of Turkey’s crisis recovery policies.

    Supporters of the government’s economic policy have referred to the country’s ability to avoid a major economic breakdown without outside help and the signs of recovery in recent months. In their view, through its successful road map, Turkey proved its self-sufficiency and resilience to crises, and that it could sustain this momentum without the injection of foreign capital through an IMF deal (Today’s Zaman, March 11).

    Thus, Turkish government officials welcomed the recently announced export figures as further evidence that Turkey was emerging from recession. In a written statement, Turkish State Minister, Zafer Caglayan, responsible for foreign trade, interpreted these developments as signs that Turkish export levels were on the path to recovery. He analyzed the trends in exports and argued that the government will be able to reach the export volume predictions of the medium-term economic plan (www.ntvmsnbc.com, August 1).

    Nonetheless, Turkish economists call for caution in evaluating Turkey’s performance in coming out of recession. For instance, a leading Turkish economist, Guven Sak, based on the results of a study conducted by the Economic Policy Research Foundation of Turkey (TEPAV), identifies a worrying pattern. He argues that although the export volume in the global economy expanded in the first quarter of 2010, Turkish exports remained rather stagnant. He reached the conclusion that while the global economy is rapidly returning to pre-crisis levels, Turkey is having difficulty catching up with these wider trends; Turkey was able to recover only 75 percent of the export volume lost due to the crisis. Thus, he called for a more effective export promotion strategy (Referans, July 29, www.tepav.org, July 28).

    Indeed, reaching new markets has been a key component of the government’s recent foreign economic strategy. Caglayan and other Turkish officials have traveled extensively in order to boost Turkey’s foreign trade. For instance, Caglayan was in the US recently. Traditionally, Turkish exports to the US remained limited compared to its trade ties with the EU and Turkey now seeks to gain a larger share of the US market. Similarly, Turkey wants to form a free trade zone in the Middle East to include Turkey, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan, hoping that it might improve Turkish trade with the region. A meeting in Istanbul brought together the representatives of these countries last weekend, where they agreed further steps towards realization of this objective (Anadolu Ajansi, July 31).

    The need for a more effective export-oriented growth strategy, in addition to penetrating into new markets, is also recognized by the government. In a recent meeting aimed at formulating a road map for Turkish exports, bringing together representatives from the treasury, central bank and other state institutions, Caglayan stressed that industrial products still accounts for nearly 80 percent of the country’s exports. The meeting concluded that Turkey had to reduce its dependence on the export of low and medium-technology products and move to more profitable sectors. Also, the meeting highlighted Turkey’s heavy reliance on foreign energy sources as a liability affecting its foreign trade balance (Anadolu Ajansi, July 12).

    This last point highlights another major challenge facing Turkey’s economic recovery: dependence upon imports to sustain its economic growth. Parallel to the increase in domestic production and exports, Turkish imports also soared in recent months. The foreign trade deficit, which had been a prime source of concern for the Turkish economy, contracted sharply during the global financial crisis. Figures released recently show that as of June 2010 the foreign trade deficit increased by 34.9 percent since last year and Turkey’s exports are far from meeting its imports (www.tuik.gov.tr, July 30).

    https://jamestown.org/program/turkeys-economic-recovery-raises-questions/

  • Turkey Looks East, Too, As Economic Power Explodes

    Turkey Looks East, Too, As Economic Power Explodes

    For decades, Turkey has been told it was not ready to join the European Union — that it was too backward economically to qualify for membership in the now 27-nation club.

    That argument may no longer hold.

    Today, Turkey is a fast-rising economic power, with a core of internationally competitive companies turning the youthful nation into an entrepreneurial hub, tapping cash-rich export markets in Russia and the Middle East while attracting billions of investment dollars in return.

    For many in aging and debt-weary Europe, which will be lucky to eke out a little more than 1 percent growth this year, Turkey’s economic renaissance — last week it reported a stunning 11.4 percent expansion for the first quarter, second only to China— poses a completely new question: who needs the other one more — Europe or Turkey?

    “The old powers are losing power, both economically and intellectually,” said Vural Ak, 42, the founder and chief executive of Intercity, the largest car leasing company in Turkey.

    “And Turkey is now strong enough to stand by itself.”

    It is an astonishing transformation for an economy that, just 10 years ago, had a budget deficit of 16 percent of gross domestic product and inflation of 72 percent.

    It is one that lies at the root of the rise to power of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has combined social conservatism with fiscally cautious economic policies to make his Justice and Development Party, or A.K.P., the most dominant political movement in Turkey since the early days of the republic.

    So complete has this evolution been that Turkey is now closer to fulfilling the criteria for adopting the euro — if it ever does get into the European Union — than most of the troubled economies already in the euro zone.

    It is well under the 60 percent ceiling on government debt at 49 percent of G.D.P., and could well get its annual budget deficit below the 3 percent benchmark next year.

    That leaves the reduction of inflation, now running at 8 percent, as the only remaining major policy goal.

    “This is a dream world,” said Husnu M. Ozyegin, who became the richest man in Turkey when he sold his bank, Finansbank, to the National Bank of Greece in 2006.

    Sitting on the rooftop of his five-star Swiss Hotel, he was looking at his BlackBerry, scrolling down the most recent credit-default spreads for euro zone countries.

    He still could not quite believe what he was seeing.

    “Greece, 980. Italy, 194 and here is Turkey at 192,” he said with a grunt of satisfaction.

    “If you had told me 10 years ago that Turkey’s financial risk would equal that of Italy I would have said you were crazy.”

    Having sold at the top to Greece, Mr. Ozyegin is now putting his money to work in the east.

    His new bank, Eurocredit, gets 35 percent of its profit from its Russian operations.

    Mr. Ozyegin represents the old guard of Turkey’s business elite that has embraced the Erdogan government for its economic successes.

    Less well known but just as important to Turkey’s future development has been the rapid rise of socially conservative business leaders who, under the A.K.P., have seen their businesses thrive by tapping Turkey’s flourishing consumer and export markets.

    Mr. Ak, the car leasing executive, exemplifies this new business elite of entrepreneurs.

    He drives a Ferrari to work, but he is also a practicing Muslim who does not drink and has no qualms in talking about his faith.

    He is not bound to the 20th-century secular consensus among the business, military and judicial elite that fought long and hard to keep Islam removed from public life.

    On the wall behind his desk is a framed passage in Arabic from the Koran, and he recently financed an Islamic studies program just outside Washington at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., where Mr. Erdogan recently spoke, according to this fascinating article in the New York Times.

    Whether he is embracing Islam as a set of principles to govern his life or Israeli irrigation technology for his sideline almond and walnut growing business, Mr. Ak represents the flexible dynamism — both social and economic — that has allowed Turkey to expand the commercial ties with Israel, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Syria that now underpin its ambition to become the dominant political actor in the region.

    Other prominent members of this newer group of business executives are Mustafa Latif Topbas, the chairman and a founder of the discount-shopping chain BIM, the country’s fastest-growing retail chain, and Murat Ulker, who runs the chocolate and cookie manufacturer Yildiz Holding.

    With around $11 billion in sales, Yildiz Holding supplies its branded food products not just to the Turkish market but to 110 markets globally.

    It has set up factories in Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Ukraine and now owns the Godiva brand.

    The two billionaires have deep ties to the prime minister — Mr. Erdogan once owned a company that distributed Ulker-branded products, and Mr. Topbas is a close adviser — but the trade opportunities in this part of the world are plentiful enough that a boost from the government is now no longer needed.

    In June, Turkish exports grew by 13 percent compared with the previous year, with much of the demand coming from countries on Turkey’s border or close to it, like Iraq, Iran and Russia.

    With their immature manufacturing bases, they are eager buyers of Turkish cookies, automobiles and flat-screen televisions.

    This year, for example, the country’s flagship carrier, Turkish Airlines, will fly to as many cities in Iraq (three) as it does to France.

    Some of its fastest growing routes are to Libya, Syria and Russia,

    Turkey’s largest trading partner, where it flies to seven cities.

    That is second only to Germany, which has a large population of immigrant Turks.

    In Iran, Turkish companies are building fertilizer plants, making diapers and female sanitary products.

    In Iraq, the Acarsan Group, based in the southeastern town of Gaziantep, just won a bid to build five hospitals.

    And Turkish construction companies have a collective order book of over $30 billion, second only to China.

    On the flip side, the Azerbaijani government owns Turkey’s major petrochemicals company and Saudi Arabia has been a big investor in the country’s growing Islamic finance sector.

    No one here disputes that these trends give Mr. Erdogan the legitimacy — both at home and abroad — to lash out at Israel and to cut deals with Iran over its nuclear energy, moves that have strained ties with its chief ally and longtime supporter, the United States.

    Turkey has exported $1.6 billion worth of goods to Iran and Syria this year, $200 million more than to the United States.

    But some worry that the muscle flexing may have gone too far perhaps the result of tightening election polls at home — and that the aggressive tone with Israel may jeopardize the defining tenet of Turkey’s founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk: peace at home, peace in the world.

    “The foreign policy of Turkey is good if it brings self-pride,” said Ferda Yildiz, the chairman of Basari Holding, a conglomerate that itself is in negotiations with the Syrian government to set up a factory in Syria that would make electricity meters.

    Even so, he warns that it would be a mistake to become too caught up in an eastward expansion if it comes at the expense of the country’s longstanding inclination to look to the West for innovation and inspiration.

    “It takes centuries to make relations and minutes to destroy them,” he said.

    David Caploe PhD

    Editor-in-Chief

    EconomyWatch.com

    President / acalaha.com

    , 12 July 2010.

  • Cypriot Hotel Threatens To Sue J.Lo For $40m

    Cypriot Hotel Threatens To Sue J.Lo For $40m

    A luxury hotel in northern Cyprus has threatened to sue pop star Jennifer Lopez for $40m (£27m) after she cancelled a gig there for “political” reasons.

    But newspapers in the Turkish-occupied territory said the hotel owner has offered J.Lo an olive branch, saying there is still time to reverse her decision.

    The singer had been due to perform on July 24 at the Cratos Premium hotel and casino complex – but the booking outraged Greek Cypriots in the south of the island nation.

    They claimed that performing in the disputed north would be tantamount to making a political statement and the singer was deluged with thousands of letters of protest.

    A Facebook site against the concert signed up almost 20,000 members within a week.

    In backing out of the concert, a spokesperson for J.Lo told celebrity gossip website TMZ: “Jennifer Lopez would never knowingly support any state, country, institution or regime that was associated with any form of human rights abuse.

    “After a full review of the relevant circumstances in Cyprus, it was the decision of management to withdraw from the appearance. This was a team decision that reflects our sensitivity to the political realities of the region.”

    Yet Feza Firat, whose Istanbul-based F&F Agency represents the Cratos hotel, claims Lopez had been “led to believe there was a war going on”.

    Mr Firat went on to say the singer’s fee had already been paid.

    The US-based American Hellenic Educational Progressive Association claimed the concert would “lend credence to an illegal entity recognised only by Turkey”.

    Cyprus has been divided since 1974 when Turkey occupied the north to try and stop Nicosia uniting with Greece.

    The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus is only recognised by Turkey and has been a significant political barrier to Turkey being allowed to join the EU.

    The SkyNews

  • More Arab tourists visit Turkey after abolishing visa requirements

    More Arab tourists visit Turkey after abolishing visa requirements

    Arab Tourists in Turkey(DP-News-World Bulletin)

    Abolishing visa requirements with some countries has driven an exceptional rise in the number of tourists to Turkey, particularly from Arab countries such as Syria, Lebanon and Libya, recent data revealed.

    According to data the Tourism Investors Association (TYD) shared with Cihan News Agency, the overall number of tourists from Arab countries to Turkey has risen by almost 50 percent in the first six months of this year over the same period of 2009, a direct result of recently improving relations with countries in the region.

    Speaking about the increasing interest of Arab tourists in Turkey, TYD President Turgut Gur says people from Middle Eastern countries tend to prefer vacation hubs such as Istanbul and Antalya; however, the Black Sea region is gradually becoming more popular with these same Arab tourists.

    “There has been a remarkable increase in the number of Arab tourists visiting Turkey particularly after the elimination of visa requirements with some countries in the region. One can assume that Arab tourists feel more comfortable in Turkey than in any European country or in the US due to certain cultural and religious similarities,” he suggested.

    Along with the elimination of visa requirements, the government’s recent interactions with Israel, due to the ongoing Gaza blockade, and the spread of Turkish soap operas among the Arab population, via satellite TV, has created a positive image for Turkey in the region.

    According to Gur the existing Arab tourist potential for Turkey could certainly increase even more if Turkey knows how to “take advantage of it.” “We need to improve our relationship with Arab tourists with such incentives as employing more Arabic-speaking people in tourism facilities,” he suggested. Gur had earlier said he expects the number of Arab tourists to reach 1 million this year.

    Businesses attune themselves to Arab tourists’ preferences
    Having seen the growing interest in and curiosity about Turkey, tour operators, hotel owners and business owners are looking to hire new employees who can speak Arabic as they want to provide better service and attract as many as Arab tourists as they can, Cuneyt Mengu, the owner of the Mercan tourism agency says. He remarked, “We see that businesses are trying to prepare themselves for this new trend in the Turkish tourism market.”

    Some shops include product labels in Arabic, while restaurants are preparing menus to suit the tastes of Arab customers. In a unique example, following the recent flocking of Arab tourists to the region, the Trabzon Governor’s Office earlier started a program to train people who can speak Arabic to work at tourist facilities on the city’s Uzungol Plateau, famous for its scenic lake, as well as fresh fish and green scenery. Some Arab entrepreneurs are even considering buying land to build new hotels in the region, stated officials.

    “Most Arab tourists that we have served in the past,” Mengu continues, “say they are happy to see people speaking Arabic in Turkey.” Noting that they are happy with the current interest from Arabs, Mengu says their company enjoyed a 15 percent increase in the number of Arab tourists in first six months over the same period of last year.

    “We believe the market will see an increase in this number by the end of the year. I call on Turkish entrepreneurs to make good use of such potential,” he added.

    Turkish Association of Travel Agents (TURSAB) President Basaran Ulusoy said that Turkey’s potential to attract Arab tourists should be capitalized upon since “these people stay for relatively longer and spend more than average.”

    “Turkey is one of the safest and most attractive vacation destinations for the Arab world. Geographical proximity is one other advantage for us,” he said. According to Ulusoy Turkish travel agents have been successful in hosting Arab tourists by using effective advertising campaigns.

    , 11/07/2010

  • Frog’s foam fashions fuel

    Frog’s foam fashions fuel

    Krista D. Zanolli, Contributing Editor, krista.zanolli@photonics.com

    With the inevitable decline of fossil fuels, the race is on to discover renewable energy solutions. As an alternative, researchers from the University of Cincinnati have found a way to convert solar energy and carbon dioxide into sugars to create new forms of biofuel.

    Figure1

    The natural process of photosynthesis involves plants taking energy from the sun and carbon from the air and converting them into sugars. It’s those converted sugars that make biofuels like ethanol and bioethanol viable alternatives to fossil fuels. The problem is that the cost of growing and processing crops for biofuel production reduces efficiency rates to as low as 5 percent.

    University of Cincinnati researchers are finding ways to take energy from the sun and carbon from the air to create new forms of biofuel, thanks to a semitropical frog species. Courtesy of the University of Cincinnati.

    The researchers now say that they have fashioned an artificial photosynthetic material that can convert solar energy and carbon dioxide into sugars with an efficiency rate approaching 96 percent. And, oddly enough, they owe their inspiration to the nesting habits of a subtropical frog – the Tungara.

    The female Tungara generates a resistant biofoam nest to protect her fertilized eggs from sunlight, temperature and pathogens until the eggs hatch. The foam is effective because it allows light and air to penetrate while still concentrating the reactants. The foam nests are also resistant to bacteria and fungus and can last up to two weeks. Similarly, the artificial photosynthetic material, which uses plant, bacterial, frog and fungal enzymes trapped within a foam housing, produces sugars from sunlight and carbon dioxide.

    The artificial material’s major foam-forming ingredient is the Tungara frog’s surfactant protein Ranaspumin-2. Unlike chemical detergents, the Rsn-2 protein surfactant enables foam formation in low concentrations without disrupting cell membranes.

    According to the study published online in Nano Letters, the foam converts light into adenosine triphosphate or ATP (considered the major energy currency of a cell) and then carbon dioxide into sugar using the Calvin-Benson-Bassham cycle. The ATP synthesis is initiated by the lipid vesicles’ exposure to green light.

    “The advantage for our system compared to plants and algae is that all of the captured solar energy is converted to sugars, whereas these organisms must divert a great deal of energy to other functions to maintain life and reproduce,” said David Wendell, research assistant professor and co-author of the study, along with Carlo Montemagno, dean of the college of engineering and applied science, and student Jacob Todd. “Our foam also uses no soil, so food production would not be interrupted, and it can be used in highly enriched carbon dioxide environments, like the exhaust from coal-burning power plants, unlike many natural photosynthetic systems.”

    Wendell added that too much carbon dioxide shuts down photosynthesis in natural plant systems, “but ours does not have this limitation due to the bacterial-based photocapture strategy.”

    “The system that we have takes carbon out of the atmosphere and uses the sunlight to go and remold the molecules into a fuel – so it’s carbon neutral,” said Montemagno in an interview with Cincinnati public radio station WVXU. “I think the features of what we’ve done allow it to be scalable and commercially deployed. For me the real underlying advantage of this is that we’re demonstrating that we are able to incorporate life processes and make it intrinsic, and that’s what is really magical about this.”

    “You can convert the sugars into many different things, including ethanol and other biofuels,” Wendell said. “And it removes carbon dioxide from the air but maintains current arable land for food production.”

    “This new technology establishes an economical way of harnessing the physiology of living systems by creating a new generation of functional materials that intrinsically incorporates life processes into its structure,” Montemagno said. “Specifically, in this work it presents a new pathway of harvesting solar energy to produce either oil or food with efficiencies that exceed other biosolar production methodologies. More broadly, it establishes a mechanism for incorporating the functionality found in living systems into systems that we engineer and build.”

    The team says the next step will be to try to make the technology feasible for large-scale applications like carbon capture and coal-burning power plants.

    “This involves developing a strategy to extract both the lipid shell of the algae (used for biodiesel) and the cytoplasmic contents (the guts), and reusing these proteins in foam,” Wendell said. “We are also looking into other short carbon molecules we can make by altering the enzyme cocktail in the foam.”

    “It is a significant step in delivering the promise of nanotechnology,” Montemagno added.

    Photonics

  • William Hague welcomes “new strategic partnership” with Turkey

    William Hague welcomes “new strategic partnership” with Turkey

    william hague press confDr. Hanan Chehata

    This afternoon a press conference was held in the British Foreign & Commonwealth Office between Foreign Secretary William Hague and Turkish Foreign Minister, Ahmet Davutoglu.

    The two men seemed to get along quite well and voiced their mutual respect for one another. In their opening statements the focus was on a new era of bilateral cooperation between Turkey and the United Kingdom, whereas in the question and answer session that followed the focus was primarily on the issue of Israel, its recent attack on the Freedom Flotilla, Turkey’s reaction to the assault, and the ongoing siege on Gaza.

    William Hague began by saying that the fact that the UK coalition government has been in office for less than two months and has already had meetings with the Turkish Foreign Minister lasting several hours and were on their way to have several more hours of meetings this afternoon shows just how serious they are about their commitment to work closely with the Turkish government.

    Hague said, “Turkey is one of the countries with whom we believe elevated ties are highly desirable.” He stated that their long discussion this morning was “extremely positive, detailed and wide ranging, covering our economic relations as well as global issues. We have established an excellent basis, I think, for working closely together as Foreign Ministers. I have great respect for the Minister as someone who has made a huge personal contribution to thinking about Turkey’s foreign policy.”

    He further added “there is huge scope for intensified dialogue and cooperation between the United Kingdom and Turkey and I’m delighted to say that we have agreed that our countries will conclude a new strategic partnership in the near future. It will reflect the importance we attach to our relationship and set the stage for closer cooperation in foreign affairs, security, defence and trade. Turkey is a vital NATO ally, a strategic partner for the UK, and Europe’s largest emerging economy and we value Turkey’s unique character as a place where East and West meet together.

    On related matters, Mr Hague said, “We value Turkey’s advice and opinions on issues such as Afghanistan, Iran, the Middle East Peace Process and the Western Balkans…Our talks this afternoon will focus on Turkey’s path to EU membership which the United Kingdom strongly supports. This government is clear that for the European Union to turn its back on Turkey would be an immense strategic error and we will encourage Turkey’s EU aspirations….”

    He mentioned that Prime Minster, David Cameron hopes to make an “early visit to Turkey which will be another milestone in building closer ties between our countries.”

    On his part, Turkey’s Foreign Minister Davutoglu began his talk by commenting on the historic relations between Turkey and Britain and mentioned that the first ever Turkish ambassador outside Turkey was sent to London in 1793.

    He said that there had been approximately 13 billion dollars in foreign trade between Turkey and Britain in 2008, which dropped somewhat in 2009, but that they now hoped to increase it again, “not just to 13 billion dollars but to 20 billion dollars in the coming years!” He also announced their joint plans to work together to establish a Turkish – British University in Turkey.

    Davutoglu said they had also discussed the “recent attacks by Israel against the civilian flotilla in the Eastern Mediterranean. I explained to my colleague our perspective that that attack occurred in international waters, and there were civilian casualties and there should be accountability for this from the perspective of law. It is not only a political case; it is a legal case for us.“

    In the question and answer session Davutoglu was asked if reports that Turkey would sever ties with Israel unless they apologised over the Gaza flotilla was accurate. He responded by saying the following: “As I have said this is a legal case. The fact is eight Turks and one American citizen was killed in international waters. So there is a crime. Now there are some simple questions. Who killed these nine civilians in international waters? It was not in the territory of Israel. It was not [in] Israeli waters. They did not violate Israeli territory. They did not harm any Israeli citizens. Now the question is who killed them? Everybody knows who. Then the second question: on what basis were they killed? Who has the right to kill civilians in international waters? All of us, all civilised societies, we are accountable and we are responsible. We are accountable to our societies because we are democracies and we are accountable to the international community because we are members of the UN system and we are all obliged to respect international law. Now if somebody, Israel or any other country, did not respect these [conventions] then the next [issue] is that there should be accountability. Accountability means if somebody says, ‘OK it was a mistake’, then they should apologise and we can talk about our future relations, compensation and other things. If they think that they did not make any mistake, then we have another alternative, accept an international investigation. An international investigation by the UN will decide who killed these civilians, on what basis and what are the consequences. These are the two options. An [internal] investigation is not acceptable to Turkey because the accused party cannot be prosecutor and judge at the same time. Now we expect Israel to either apologise and accept its crime or to accept an international investigation. I think that this is a just and fair request from Turkey. If they do not follow these two alternatives then of course Turkey, as a respected nation and state, has full rights to take any measure to protect the rights of its civilians, of citizens. There is one American citizen, so of course it is an America decision what to do for him, but for us it is the dignity of the state to protect the rights of our citizens. Whatever is needed for this we will take action…. If Israel wants to improve relations with us then they should accept accountability and do all the necessary actions to prevent the deterioration of our relations. Two years ago in 2008 we were running the negotiations between Israel and Syria and we had a very good co-operation… so this was not the decision of Turkey. The deterioration of Turkish Israeli relations was because of the decisions and violations of the Israeli government against International law.”

    , 08 July 2010