By\u00a0Haroon Siddiqui
\nEditorial Page
\nNote: This article has been edited from a previous version.<\/p>\n
Turkey has not given up its dream of joining the\u00a0European Union. It
\nhas not become “anti-West.” It does not have any intention of cutting
\nits longstanding relationship with\u00a0Israel.<\/p>\n
That’s what Turkish Prime Minister\u00a0Recep Tayyip Erdogan\u00a0told the Star
\nin an interview yesterday.<\/p>\n
But he added that relations with Israel will remain strained until *apologizes for the May 31 commando raid on the Turkish ship that was\u00a0part of the flotilla taking\u00a0humanitarian aid\u00a0to\u00a0Gaza;<\/p>\n *pays compensation to the families of the nine people killed, eight *agrees to an international probe, as called for by UN *lifts its embargo on the\u00a0Gaza Strip.<\/strong><\/p>\n Reminded that Israel has already announced an easing of the embargo, “We’ve heard those statements but no steps have been taken. Similar He also suggested that Turkey is planning to sue Israel on behalf of Erdogan, in Toronto for the\u00a0G20 summit, was to raise the issue with Turkey, a member of\u00a0NATO, has long been Israel’s best Muslim ally. But There was Turkey’s initiative with\u00a0Brazil\u00a0for a compromise over the And following the May 31 incident, Erdogan said that Israel had made In the interview yesterday, Erdogan said the Gaza aid flotilla was It was attacked “in international waters, 72 miles (….) out of the He said he is familiar with the argument that Israel has a right to “But you have no right to do that in international waters …<\/p>\n “I interpret this as\u00a0state terror.”<\/strong><\/p>\n He said some of the dead had been shot “at close range,” “at point If the intent was not to kill, the plastic bullets could have been When the boats were towed to an Israeli port and the passengers held “So I am very grateful to President Obama for his intervention. If it Erdogan cited\u00a0United Nations\u00a0and other reports that Gaza is a Is Turkey becoming anti-Israeli?<\/p>\n Not so.<\/p>\n “I want to be very clear.\u00a0In the Middle\u00a0East, Turkey is the only “We held five rounds, the last one was in my official residence–for That Friday meeting never took place, and on Saturday the “Israeli As that Friday was approaching, the Israelis “weren’t answering our As Turkey pursues closer relations and increased trade with its “That would be a very wrong conclusion. Turkey is developing contacts How about the European Union – has Turkey given up on it? U.S. Defence “We continue with determination to walk on the European path, despite hsiddiqui@thestar.ca<\/span>,\u00a0Jun 27 2010<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By\u00a0Haroon Siddiqui Editorial Page Note: This article has been edited from a previous version. Turkey has not given up its dream of joining the\u00a0European Union. It has not become “anti-West.” It does not have any intention of cutting its longstanding relationship with\u00a0Israel. That’s what Turkish Prime Minister\u00a0Recep Tayyip Erdogan\u00a0told the Star in an interview yesterday. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":32532,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[148,89,922],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20222","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-israel","category-turkey","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20222","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20222"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20222\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nIsrael fulfills four conditions<\/span>:<\/strong><\/p>\n
\nTurks and one Turkish-American;<\/p>\n
\nSecretary-General\u00a0Ban Ki-moon\u00a0into the incident (as opposed to an
\nIsraeli inquiry); and<\/p>\n
\nErdogan said:<\/p>\n
\nstatements have been made in the past.”<\/p>\n
\nthe victims.<\/p>\n
\nBarack Obama\u00a0at a bilateral meeting last night. He was to augment his
\narguments with forensic pictures of and reports on the dead that he is
\ncarrying with him.<\/p>\n
\nrelations have been strained since the 2008-09 Gaza war, which Erdogan
\ncondemned and reportedly called Israel “the principal threat to\u00a0peace
\nin the Middle East.”<\/p>\n
\nIranian nuclear issue, which was rejected by\u00a0Washington. Turkey voted
\nagainst the U.S,-led resolution in the\u00a0U.N. Security Council\u00a0on fresh
\nsanctions on\u00a0Iran.<\/p>\n
\n“a historic mistake,” that “Israel risks losing its most important
\nfriend in the region if it does not change its mentality,” and that
\n“peace and stability will not come to the region as long as the
\nblockade of Gaza persists.”<\/p>\n
\norganized by non-governmental organizations, was carrying volunteers
\nfrom 33 nations, along with humanitarian aid – food, medicine, toys,
\nconstruction material, etc.<\/p>\n
\nterritorial waters of Israel. Unfortunately, guns and rifles and
\nplastic bullets were used.”<\/p>\n
\ndefend itself. “Of course, you can protect your borders against armed
\npeople or against a military enemy, and you can consider such action
\nin your own national borders.<\/p>\n
\nblank range,” “from the chest up,” “from behind the neck.”<\/p>\n
\nfired at below the knee level, he said.<\/p>\n
\nin custody, Erdogan said he called Obama, “and thanks to very intense
\nefforts by the Americans, the people who had been held in prison were
\ndelivered to us within 24 hours.<\/p>\n
\nhadn’t been for this very speedy response on the part of President
\nObama, things could have been more problematic.”<\/p>\n
\nhumanitarian disaster, and added that the aid promised at a donors’
\nconference is yet to be delivered. Destroyed infrastructure remains in
\nruins.<\/p>\n
\nfriendly country to Israel, so much so that during the (Ehud) Olmert
\ngovernment, Turkey helped Israel hold indirect talks with\u00a0Syria.<\/p>\n
\nsix hours, with Olmert present. We had gotten down to writing words
\nfor some sort of an agreement … That meeting was on a Monday. And we
\nhad decided that we will come back on Friday to complete the work.”<\/p>\n
\nbombing of Gaza began.”<\/p>\n
\ncalls–must have been in preparation of the Gaza bombing. Earlier,
\nwhenever we had called, they’d always call back but this time they
\ndidn’t.”<\/p>\n
\nneighbours, and is emerging as a strong regional player in the\u00a0Middle
\nEast, is it turning away from the West?<\/p>\n
\nall over the world. But Turkey has not cut off relations with anyone.
\nSuch a thing is not on the agenda.”<\/p>\n
\nSecretary Robert Gates<\/strong> recently blamed\u00a0Europe\u00a0for having “pushed and
\npushed”<\/strong> Turkey away.\u00a0Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini <\/strong>agreed,\u00a0saying, “We Europeans have made a mistake in pushing Turkey eastwards\u00a0instead of bringing it towards us.”
\n<\/strong>
\nBut Erdogan said Turkey still very much wants to join the EU.<\/p>\n
\nthe efforts on the part of the European Union to prevent the opening
\nof some of the chapters that are part of the negotiations process.”<\/p>\n