Tag: U.N.

  • Turkey did not sponsor Gaza flotilla

    Turkey did not sponsor Gaza flotilla

    The aid convoy for Gaza organized in May 2010 was a humanitarian initiative with people from more than 30 countries (including the United States and Israel) in ships sailing under the flags of several nations. While there were private Turkish citizens among participants, the flotilla was not organized or even encouraged by the Turkish government, asDanny Danon conjures without evidence (“Why Turkey should apologize to Israel,” Commentary, Aug. 15). Quite the contrary.

    Ambassador Namik TanNine people lost their lives when Israeli commandos used excessive, lethal force and violated all established norms of international law by attacking the convoy in the international waters of the Mediterranean, as the U.N. Human Rights Council’s fact-finding mission concluded in its report on the incident. Eight of the nine killed were Turkish citizens, and one was an American citizen of Turkish descent.

    As any country – including Israel – would be, Turkey was shattered by the loss of its citizens. We also were shocked that for the first time in our history, our citizens were killed by a foreign armed force during peacetime. What has increased our sorrow is that this deplorable action was caused by a country Turkey has long considered a friend.

    Turkey rightly asks for a formal apology and appropriate compensation to the families of those killed. These acts will never fully ease the pain the families and the Turkish people feel, but they are essential to the normalization of relations, from which both Turkey and Israel benefit.

    It is meaningful that Mr. Danon, rather than supporting the efforts to leave this incident behind, is appealing to audiences in the United States and that he defines the essential ingredients of normalization as acts of humiliation. He does not recognize that rather than humiliation, these steps represent the cornerstones of civility upon which any strong friendship rests.

    NAMIK TAN

    Ambassador to the United States

    Republic of Turkey

    Washington

     

    The Washington Times

     

  • Israel agrees to participate in U.N. flotilla probe

    Israel agrees to participate in U.N. flotilla probe

    August 2, 2010

    JERUSALEM (JTA) — Israel has agreed to participate in a United Nations investigation of the Gaza-bound Turkish flotilla incident.

    “Israel has nothing to hide,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday after informing U.N. Secretary Ban Ki-moon that Israel would participate in the panel that he is establishing. “The opposite is true. It is in the national interest of the State of Israel to ensure that the factual truth of the overall flotilla events comes to light throughout the world, and this is exactly the principle that we are advancing.”

    Netanyahu and his inner Cabinet of seven ministers made the decision to participate in the international probe.

    Geoffrey Palmer, the former prime minister of New Zealand, and Alvaro Uribe, the outgoing president of Colombia, will serve as chair and vice chair of the panel. Its two additional members will be from Turkey and Israel.

    It marks the first time that Israel will serve on a U.N. committee that is investigating its activities, according to Haaretz.

    Israel’s Navy intercepted the Gaza-bound flotilla, which originated in Turkey, on May 31, when violence on the deck of one of the ships, the Marmara, led to the deaths of nine Turkish nationals, including one dual Turkish-American citizen.

    An independent Israeli public commission chaired by retired Supreme Court Justice Jacob Turkel also is investigating the incident.

    JTA