Tag: Netanyahu

Minister: Turkey does not mind cooperation with Israel

Azerbaijan, Baku, April 20 / Trend R.Hafizoglu /

Turkey does not mind cooperation with Israel following the completion of the process of normalization of relations, Turkey’s Minister of Energy and Natural Resources Taner Yildiz said, Sabah newspaper reported.

The minister said this issue could be discussed after the full normalization of relations.

Earlier, Al Jazeera channel has published information alleging that Turkey and Israel are negotiating on the transportation of Turkish goods through Israel.

The agreement on normalisation of relations between Turkey and Israel was reached last Friday after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a telephone conversation with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan, apologised for violations committed during the maritime operation that resulted in the deaths of Turkish citizens.

The government heads agreed to restore normal relations including the return of ambassadors and Turkey’s refusal to legally prosecute Israeli servicemen.

April 21, 2013
Post-apology, are Israel and Turkey allies again, or uneasy frenemies?

ADNAN KHAN

Post-apology, are Israel and Turkey allies again, or uneasy frenemies?

ADNAN KHAN

The Globe and Mail

If you believe the hype, Turkey and Israel are friends again. It’s been a long time coming. Four years ago, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Turkish Prime Minster Recep Tayyip Erdogan walked off the stage during a debate with Israeli President Shimon Peres, accusing the moderator of not giving him enough time to respond to Mr. Peres’ comments on Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.

The incident came to be known in Turkey as the 12-Minute Affair, referring to the time Mr. Erdogan was given to speak compared to the 25 minutes allotted to Mr. Peres. Turks began using the phrase proudly, if somewhat lightheartedly, at dinner parties and bars, raising their hands in the air during heated discussions with friends, shouting: “Twelve minutes! Twelve Minutes!”

A little more than a year later, in May 2010, Turkish-Israeli relations took a more ominous turn after a deadly raid by Israeli commandos on a Turkish cargo ship hired by the Turkish Humanitarian Relief Foundation (IHH), carrying supplies to civilians in Gaza, in defiance of Israel’s blockade. Eight Turks and an American citizen were killed in the pre-dawn chaos, prompting Turkey to expel Israel’s ambassador. Relations dipped to dangerous levels after Israel refused to apologize for the incident and pay compensation to the families of those killed, reaching their nadir when Turkey changed its designation of Israeli warplanes from ‘friendlies’ to ‘hostile.’ The apology finally came in late March this year following a visit to Israel by U.S. President Barack Obama. In Turkey, it was seen as another victory. Mr. Erdogan had triumphed again over the Goliath of the Middle East, raising his street cred among both Turks and Arabs.

In terms of U.S. strategic interests, the apology was critical. As Islamists cash in on the political windfall following the collapse of authoritarian governments throughout the Middle East, it’s Turkey that offers the kind of moderation and leadership the American administration needs.

But it’s a risky gamble. Turkey is nowhere near the human rights norms expected of it if it intends to reach international standards. A recent report by the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders dubbed Turkey “the world’s biggest prison for journalists.” The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has been accused of using intimidation to silence critics and push forward an agenda many feel undermines Turkey’s secular system.

For Israel, these are worrying developments. Its apology falls into the rubric of necessity more than any genuine sense of remorse. In fact, Israeli and Turkish interests have never been as far apart as they are today, the victims of geopolitical realities neither could have anticipated.

But it is Turkey that has played the game expertly. The AKP occupies a novel category in conservative politics. It is perhaps the world’s only Muslim political party with a proven track record of successfully operating in a globalized democratic environment. It has shown a remarkable ability to read the key issues of its time, both domestically and geopolitically. In many ways, despite its increasing authoritarianism, it operates as a mature political party, catering to its key domestic constituencies – namely religious conservatives and the business community – while managing to preserve its international image as the pivot point between East and West.

Take Syria: In a recent interview with Turkish journalists, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu admitted his government has “concerns” over extremist groups gaining ground in the Syrian revolution but insisted that worrying about those groups now undermines the more urgent need – namely, to bring an end to the conflict.

The Israelis view events in Syria through a very different lens. Islamic extremism tops the agenda and as jihadists gain ground in Syria, Israel faces the prospect of another hardline Islamist government on its doorstep.

The Turkish approach is more subtle. On the one hand, it condemns groups like the Jabhat al-Nusra, the al-Qaeda-linked militants considered the most dangerous rebel group operating in Syria. On the other, it quietly supports groups like the Ahrar al-Sham, a Salafi-inspired Islamist faction that has made deep in-roads into Syrian society through its vast network of humanitarian relief operations.

The IHH, considered an arm of the AKP, has developed a strong working relationship with the Ahrar al-Sham. Most of the aid it delivers to Syria is channeled through them.

It’s hard to believe the AKP leadership is not aware of how the IHH operates. But the sensitivity of the issue, both inside Turkey where allegations of an Islamist conspiracy abound, and internationally where helping Islamist factions in Syria is tantamount to helping terrorists, poses serious problems for Ankara.

But the AKP has read the writing on the wall. It seems inevitable that Islamists will dominate Middle Eastern politics for the foreseeable future. As authoritarian regimes collapse, it’s these groups, with their networks of social organizations, that have offered their citizens a social agenda and capitalized on elections. Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood swept to power on the back of a reputation for humanitarianism, developed over years of working among Egypt’s poor and disenfranchised. The secularists, who launched the Egyptian revolution, could not compete on the political stage. Young, and largely online, they were ill-equipped to address the ground realities facing everyday Egyptians.

Through its leveraging of these Islamist parties, Turkey has developed into a dominant force in the Middle East. The gambit in Syria follows this same logic: the Ahrar al-Sham is developing into the most influential group in Syria. Barring a wider civil war after the Assad regime collapses, it is posed to dominate the future of Syrian politics. And Turkey is its friend.

Obviously, the Israelis would not approve. Their nightmare scenario is a future Syria dominated by Islamists who reject Israel’s right to exist, or worse still a sectarian civil war that turns Syria into an Arab Afghanistan where al-Qaeda flourishes, right on Israel’s doorstep. It is a near-sighted vision, however, that fails to take into account the broader realities of the Arab Spring, and runs counter to the interests of Turkey.

But for the sake of appearance Turkey and Israel must appear to be friends again, as paper thin as that friendship actually is. It is a game, and Turkey is winning.

Adnan Khan is a writer and photographer who lives in Istanbul and Islamabad.

April 19, 2013
Report: Apology won’t change Turkey, ‘weakens Israel’s deterrence’

Report: Apology won’t change Turkey, ‘weakens Israel’s deterrence’

Special to WorldTribune.com

TEL AVIV — Israel’s apology to Turkey for the bloody interception of

a flotilla to the Gaza Strip harms the deterrence of the Jewish state, a

report said.

The report, titled “Israel’s Apology to Turkey: A Mistake,” asserted

that the apology by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the 2010 Israel

Navy interception of a Turkish-flotilla, in which eight Turks were killed,

undermines Israel and encourages Turkish belligerency.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu apologized to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan for a 2010 raid on a Turkish flotilla ship. /Getty Images

The report by the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies said Netanyahu’s apology would fail to restore strategic cooperation with Turkey, which existed for most of the last 20 years.

“It is highly unlikely that we will see a reversal or a turnaround in

Turkey’s anti-Western and anti-Israeli policies,” author Efraim Inbar,

director of the strategic center, said. “The apology from Jerusalem only

enhances Turkish ambitions and weakens Israel’s deterrence.”

The report, dated March 24, was one of several that criticized Israel’s

apology to Turkey as well as agreement to grant Ankara the right to

intervene with the Palestinian Authority and the Hamas regime. Inbar, a

leading Israeli strategist who served as a consultant to several

governments, said Ankara, intent on leading the Middle East, has no

intention to improve relations with Israel.

Inbar said Turkey, under Prime Minister Recep Erdogan, has become a

supporter of Iran, Hamas and the Islamist Sunni rebels in Syria. The report

said Erdogan, who called Zionism a threat to humanity, is “plainly

anti-Semitic.”

“Turkey is also actively helping radical Islamic Sunni elements take

over Syria,” the report said. “It also supports the idea of violent

opposition against Israel’s presence on the Golan Heights. As such, the hope

that Israel and Turkey can cooperate together with the United States in

limiting the damage from a disintegrating Syria has little validity.”

The report attributed Netanyahu’s apology to pressure by the United

States. The apology also came in wake of Palestinian rocket attacks on

Israel from the Gaza Strip, which Erdogan has pledged to visit.

“Furthermore, an apology to a Hamas supporter, just a day after Hamas

again launched rockets against Israel, communicates terrible weakness,” the

report said. “Sanctioning an Erdogan victory trip to Gaza at this particular

moment is terribly foolish, too, particularly when Israel is seeking to

bolster the standing of the rival Palestinian Authority.”

via Report: Apology won’t change Turkey, ‘weakens Israel’s deterrence’ | World Tribune.

April 8, 2013
Israel’s olive branch to Turkey indicates smart strategy

Arthur I. Cyr is Clausen Distinguished Professor at Carthage College and author of “After the Cold War.”

March 30, 2013 12:00 am • By Arthur I. Cyr(0) Comments

On March 22, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel reached out the hand of peace by telephoning Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey to apologize. Often belligerent “Bibi” Netanyahu was making amends for the notorious incident in 2010, when Israeli armed forces boarded a Turkish ship attempting to deliver humanitarian supplies to occupied Gaza.

Israel’s marines killed nine civilian Turkish activists in the incident, and once-solid ties between the two nations plummeted. The call was not only the right thing to do, but also a successful start down the long road of repairing relations between the two formerly close allies.

The conversation occurred at Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv. President Barack Obama, who was on the point of departure from his successful visit to Israel, brokered the conversation. The U.S. leader rightly deserves considerable credit for engineering this rapprochement.

The particularly effective last act of the Israel visit may prove the most important of Obama’s trip to the Middle East, thanks primarily to Turkey’s steadily expanding regional and international roles. Last June, a Syrian missile shot down a Turkish F-4 jet fighter.

Some expected war. Instead, Turkey’s government in Ankara expanded air defenses and troops on the border, consulted NATO and worked within international law. Ironically, Syria’s aggressive missile launchers increased the growing isolation of their government.

The destruction of the Turkish plane bolstered the collective international effort to bring down the Syria government. Turkey was added to the June Geneva summit of UN Security Council members to address the Syrian civil war.

Turkey is a pivotal nation, Western in practices with a Moslem majority population. Since the successful revolution in the 1920s led by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the government of Turkey has been constitutionally secular. The army has served as watchdog to keep religion at bay.

Since 2002, Turkey has been governed by the Islamic Justice and Development Party (AKP), with substantial popular support reinforced in elections in 2007 and 2011. Relations with the military have been tense but manageable. The people remain committed to representative government, an effective counter against al-Qaeda and other extremist movements.

Meanwhile, the European Union has turned Turkey’s application for membership into endless ordeal. Condescension combined with inefficiency is reflected in the slow motion of Brussels Eurocrats.

Turkey commands vital sea lanes and trade routes, including the Strait of Bosporus, and oil and gas shipping avenues. Last year, Azerbaijan and Turkey signed a $7 billion gas pipeline deal. Turkey’s trade and investment with Eastern Europe and Central Asia grows, effectively leaving behind a restrictive and often elitist European Union.

Ankara-Washington cooperation is strongly rooted. Turkey has been engaged in Afghanistan, including military command responsibilities. During the first Persian Gulf War, U.S. B-52 bombers were deployed on Turkish soil, a potentially risky move by Ankara. Turkey played a vital Allied role during the Korean War; the UN military cemetery at Pusan contains a notably large number of Turkish graves.

The Bush administration’s invasion of Iraq was bitterly opposed by Ankara. As predicted, Kurdish terrorists based in Iraq have been freed to attack Turkey, leading to retaliatory military strikes across the northern border.

Obama made a point of visiting Turkey at the start of his administration. Bringing Israel and Turkey back together provides a nice bookend at the start of his second term.

Washington must continue rebuilding relations with this great nation.

via GUEST COMMENTARY: Israel’s olive branch to Turkey indicates smart strategy.

March 31, 2013
Turkey’s Big Week Means New Clout In An Emerging Middle East

By Karl VickMarch 28

HAWRE MUHAMED / METROGRAPHY

Kurds celebrate Newroz in the PKK controlled area of Qandil in the north of Iraqi Kurdistan.

A sandstorm was kicking up at Ben Gurion International midday last Friday, winds bad enough to cancel the departure ceremony for President Obama’s winning trip to Israel. But in a sheet metal trailer on the tarmac, Obama was calming another storm, three years along and finally running out of bluster. In the box with him was his host, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Nentayahu. In Netanyahu’s hand was a cell phone. And on the other end of the line was the prime minister of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

As arranged in advance by Obama and diplomats from all three countries, Bibi read out an official apology for the nine lives lost on the Turkish vessel Mavi Marmara in May 2010, when Israeli commandos boarded the aid ship en route to breaking Israel’s blockade on the Gaza Strip. Netanyahu’s words, along with a promise to compensate survivors and continue to ease strictures on the Palestinian enclave, ended a diplomatic cleavage seated in sheer cussedness, and restored what one Israeli diplomat calls “the triangle” – made up of the two most stable and prosperous democracies in the Middle East, and the superpower that needs them on the same side.

If that was all that went Erdogan’s way last week, he might have come in second to Obama, whose tour of Israel left the supposedly wary Jewish population something close to twitterpated. But Erdogan had already pulled off a diplomatic coup of his own — and just one day earlier: Abdullah Ocalan, the imprisoned head of the insurgent Kurdistan Workers’ Party, known by its intials in Turkish as the PKK, had agreed to end the country’s bloody 29-year civil war and bring the Kurdish struggle into the realm of representative politics. In the space of two days, Erdogan – once jailed himself for an Islamist proclamation – had brought to life the foreign policy slogan of Turkey’s modern founder, the rigorously secular Kemal Ataturk: “Peace at home, peace abroad.”

(MORE: New Day for the Kurds: Will Ocalan’s Declaration Bring Peace With Turkey?)

The story of “Turkey’s Triumphs” appears in this week’s print edition of TIME, available to subscribers here. It lays out the implications for the American strategy in the Middle East of the tentative rapprochement between Jerusalem and Ankara — closely allied before Erdogan’s rise to power. Burying the hatchet should pay off first for Washington in Syria, the country coming apart between Israel and Turkey. Both have huge stakes in the outcome of that Arab nation’s civil war, but while Turkey has been deeply involved in sheltering and arming the rebels, Israel has taken pains to stand back, keenly aware that even the perception of support for the uprising will be unhelpful, given its standing in the region. The exception is Syria’s arsenal of advanced weapons, including chemical and biological arms; the Jewish state has already interceded once , and says it will again if they detect them falling into the hands of Hizballah or other terror groups.

But history may well show that, if it holds, the pact with the Kurds will be of greater significance. Turkey is home to perhaps half of the world’s at least 30 million Kurds, the largest population still seeking a homeland of their own, after being promised one, then denied it, as European leaders were drawing the map of the Middle East after World War I. The uprising Ocalan began in 1984 claimed 40,000 lives; it sought secession for most of the war sought. Kurds now say they will be happy with equal rights and some form of cooperation with fellow Kurds across the borders in northern Iraq, western Iran and in Syria – where a Kurdish party allied with the PKK has won a measure of autonomy by keeping out of the civil war. Its accommodation with the PKK may well give Ankara a new measure of influence in what happens with Syria’s Kurds. It already enjoys close ties with Northern Iraq’s Kurdish government, to the point of cooperating on building a pipeline from the oilfields of Kirkuk, bypassing Baghdad. Iraq’s Kurds, in turn, have a history of cooperation with Israel. So in a way, what Obama did in the trailer in the sandstorm on the runway was to close a circle. It’s far from a perfect circle, though, especially given Erdogan’s ardent support for the Palestinians, including Hamas. The day after receiving the apology, he announced he was considering a trip to the Gaza Strip. Washington said it wished he wouldn’t.

But the Turks figure they’re on a roll, as Erodgan’s top advisor, Ibrahim Kalin, told TIME’s Pelin Turgut: ”The apology in particular presents new opportunities for the moribund Middle East peace process, which the Obama administration has tried to revive without much success. We are aware of the obstacles to the realization of the two-state solution, including the occupation of Palestinian territories and the illegal settlements,” Kalin said. ”But it is not impossible to establish peace and security for both Israelis and Palestinians, each having its own state and enjoying a free and dignified life.”

via Turkey’s Big Week Means New Clout In An Emerging Middle East | TIME.com.

March 29, 2013
Israel, America and Turkey: A useful first step

Warmer American relations with Israel help to end its Turkish tiff

Mar 30th 2013 | ANKARA AND JERUSALEM |From the print edition

FOR the first time in years, the whiff of a wind of change is wafting through Israel’s diplomatic air, thanks to Barack Obama’s recent visit. The message the American president imparted was that he is determined in his final term to have another go at making peace between Jews and Arabs in the Middle East. Though full of the usual bromides, his speech to a gathering of young Israelis percolated down to the undecided centre of Israeli politics, where distrust for Mr Obama—and for Palestinians—has been strong. The American president may have persuaded at least some such Israelis to ponder again the need for a Palestinian state.

The trip’s more tangible result, however, was Mr Obama’s apparent success in persuading Israel’s prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, to apologise at last to Turkey for the death of nine Turks killed by Israeli commandos in 2010 stopping a flotilla of Turkish boats from reaching Gaza.

“Israelis love Turkey,” declares the blurb of an Israeli package-tour operator, hoping to promote the resort of Antalya once again as Israel’s favourite tourist destination. On the strength of Mr Netanyahu’s apology, he may be onto a winner.

Just before Mr Obama flew out of Israel, he handed Mr Netanyahu his telephone to speak to Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s prime minister. After nearly four years of estrangement, America’s two most powerful and closest allies in the Middle East agreed to co-operate again. Once Israel’s compensation to the Turks has been settled, diplomatic relations will be restored.

Both sides have much to gain. Israel hopes Mr Erdogan will rescue it from its isolation since the downfall of friendly regional autocrats, in particular in Egypt. The two countries may now be able to share copious amounts of natural gas recently found in the eastern Mediterranean. They should resume co-operation in military intelligence. And Israelis may soon again enjoy those tours. Even when relations were at their nadir, military sales continued, as did foreign trade worth $3 billion a year.

All the same, the Israeli-Turkish strategic relationship is unlikely to be wholly restored, not least because of Mr Erdogan’s sharp tongue. A month ago he called Zionism “a crime against humanity”, so threatening to ruin America’s bridge-building. “The 1990s are over,” says Nimrod Goren, an Israeli academic who kept open a discreet channel when even Turkish and Israeli spies refused to exchange words.

And a host of regional issues may yet prise them apart. Mr Netanyahu will turn a deaf ear to Mr Erdogan’s call for Israel to vacate East Jerusalem and the West Bank and to open up Gaza entirely. In his written apology, Mr Netanyahu said he would ease restrictions on supplies to that Palestinian coastal strip ruled by Hamas. But Israel seems bent on keeping up its blockade by air and sea, which first prompted Turkey’s flotilla to try to get there.

Meanwhile Mr Erdogan’s party people hailed the apology as a big victory. “We stood firm and brought them to their knees,” tweeted a young party activist. Ahmet Davutoglu, Turkey’s foreign minister, cut short a trip to Poland to bask in credit back home. Turkish newspapers announced that Mr Erdogan was planning a triumphal visit to Gaza, not least to see a new hospital being built by the Turks.

Unless Mr Erdogan softens his rhetoric, a showdown with Israel could easily recur. Moreover, Turkey’s prime minister is likely to rebuff Mr Netanyahu’s request to help persuade Iran to drop its nuclear ambitions. Israel has had to discount hopes that the Turks would let its fighter aircraft fly over its territory. And it has so far failed to convince the Turks that Iran is close to getting a bomb. “Even if it could,” says Alon Liel, an Israeli ex-ambassador to Ankara, “Turkey doesn’t believe it is the target.”

At least over Syria there may be scope for co-operation. After months of hesitation, Israel now agrees with Turkey that President Bashar Assad must go. Both Israel and Turkey agree that al-Qaeda should be prevented from reaping the fruits of Mr Assad’s fall. Israel, says Mr Liel, might even endorse Syria’s takeover by a Western-leaning Islamist government—at any rate, if it were modelled on Turkey’s.

From the print edition: Middle East and Africa

via Israel, America and Turkey: A useful first step | The Economist.

March 29, 2013