By Tulay Karadeniz
Turkey expelled
Israel's envoy and froze military cooperation with the Jewish state on Friday
after a U.N. report on the deaths of nine Turks in an Israeli raid on a
Gaza-bound ship failed to trigger an apology.
Foreign Minister Ahmet
Davutoglu told reporters all diplomatic staff above the level of second
secretary would be sent home by Wednesday and Turkey would freeze military
pacts with its erstwhile ally.
"All military agreements
have been suspended," he said.
Ankara also said it would seek
to prosecute all Israelis involved in the May 2010 raid.
"Turkey will take legal
actions against the Israeli soldiers and all other officials responsible for
the crimes committed and pursue the matter resolutely," Turkey's embassy
in Washington said in a statement.
The rift between Turkey and
Israel comes despite U.S. efforts to encourage a rapprochement between two
regional powers whose cooperation it needs to address changes sweeping the
Middle East. Both countries share a border with Syria.
The U.N. report on the
flotilla raid, prepared by a panel headed by former New Zealand prime minister
Geoffrey Palmer, was formally handed to the office of U.N. Secretary-General
Ban Ki-moon and published on Friday , U.N. spokesman Eduardo del Buey said.
Del Buey later said Ban had
hoped the inquiry and report on its findings would bring Israel and Turkey back
together and "deeply regrets the fact that this has not been
possible."
Turkey was stung by Israel's
refusal to make a formal apology and pay compensation to families of the dead
after the U.N. report said on Thursday that Israel had used unreasonable force
in its raid on the Gaza-bound ship.
Israel's ambassador Gabby Levy
is currently in his home country and canceled plans to return to Turkey.
Israel said on Friday it
accepted the findings of the U.N. report and hoped to mend ties with Turkey,
but reiterated that it would not apologize for the deaths.
Immediately after the attack
on the aid convoy, Turkey withdrew its ambassador to Israel, suspended joint
military exercises, and barred Israeli military aircraft from Turkish air
space.
Turkey's reaction to the
report, which also declared that Israel's naval blockade of the Gaza Strip was
legal, deepened a rift that broke wide open in 2009 after Prime Minister Tayyip
Erdogan lambasted then-Israeli president Shimon Peres in Davos over an Israeli offensive in Gaza.
Faced with the changes
wrought by the Arab Spring, both Turkey and Israel are trying to adjust to the
shifting political landscape. Erdogan's stand on the Palestinian issue has held
Turkey in good stead among Arabs agitating for greater democracy, notably in
Egypt and more recently Syria.
"The Israeli government,
which should analyze best what is happening in the Middle East, is completely
lacking in strategy," President Abdullah Gul told reporters. "Turkey
is seeking peace and stability. There are steps which Israel must take in the
region to achieve peace and stability."
But Turkey has carefully
avoided a complete breakdown in relations with Israel, stepping up diplomatic
pressure in a calibrated fashion to leave open chances for a change of heart
either by Israel's current coalition or a future government.
Israel responded with a
statement on Friday saying it would work to resolve the dispute. It reiterated
regret over the loss of life but made clear that no apology would be
forthcoming.
"Israel recognises the
importance of the historical ties in the past and present between the Jewish
and Turkish peoples," an official Israeli statement said.
Both sides have benefited from
military intelligence and cooperation in the past, and Turkey has its own
security concerns over a Kurdish insurgency in its southeast.
An Israeli official said
ongoing defense deals include the upgrade by Israel of
Turkish tanks and F-16 jets, as well as the sale of military drone aircraft.
"We are studying the
implications of the Turkish announcement," the official said without
elaborating on the value or prospects for those deals.
LEGAL CHALLENGES
Davutoglu said Turkey would
seek to raise the question of the blockade's legality at the International
Court of Justice, "Turkey will take all measures which it sees as
necessary for freedom of navigation in the eastern Mediterranean," he
added.
Israel calls its Gaza blockade
a precaution against arms reaching Hamas and other Palestinian guerrillas by
sea. On Friday it urged Turkey not to challenge the blockade.
Palestinians and their
supporters say the blockade is illegal collective punishment, a view some U.N.
officials have echoed.
The Islamist Hamas movement
controlling Gaza issued a statement supporting Turkey's expulsion of the
Israeli envoy.
Davutoglu also said support
would be given to Turkish and foreign victims of the Israeli raid to seek
justice from courts. One of the nine Turks killed was a U.S. citizen.
Both the Israeli and Turkish
members of the four-man panel that wrote the report said they disagreed with
key findings.
The report said Israeli
commandos faced "organised and violent resistance from a group of
passengers." It also said two Israeli marines suffered gun shot wounds,
but stopped short of saying whether pro-Palestinian activists used firearms.
But in criticism of Israel,
it said the amount of force used by the Israelis on board the Mavi Marmara, the
largest in a flotilla of six ships that the crew said were delivering aid to
Palestinians in Gaza, was "excessive and unreasonable."
Davutoglu said the report
cited evidence that most of those who killed were shot several times from close
range.
(Click here to view the
Palmer Report: bit.ly/oI5R9H)
(Reporting By Tulay Karadeniz
and Daren Butler; Additional reporting by Dan Williams in Jerusalem and Louis
Charbonneau at the
United Nations; Writing by Simon
Cameron-Moore; Editing by Vicki Allen and Cynthia
Osterman)
Source : Reuters
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