Turkey – Israel: face-off continues

By Peter Lukimson, exclusively to VK

The military and political milieus of Israel are still discussing Turkey's veto of Israel’s participation in the NATO conference due to be held on May, 20-21 in Chicago. According to Ankara, Israel should be deprived of the right to participate in it as the latter still refuses to apologize for the deaths of 9 Turkish citizens on board the ‘Mavi Marmara’ vessel in May, 2010. As Turkish FM Ahmet Davutoglu said, ‘Turkey can’t regard representatives of  a state which kills Turkish citizens as negotiation partners’.

It is not the first time that Turkey hampers Israel’s participation in joint actions with NATO. In 2010 the plea of Israel to include one of its battle ships into the ‘Active Endeavour’ anti-terrorist mission was declined at Turkey’s insistence. However, Israel believes that all these actions by Turkey work only at its own disadvantage: “Of course, Turkey can hamper our participation in the Chicago summit, but it can’t stop our intensive cooperation with NATO in general and with some of its members in particular. But Turkey’s aggressive position repels many of its potential partners” – a high-ranking source in Israeli Defense Ministry told VK.

Israeli media also points out that a number of NATO members has already subjected Turkey’s position to criticism as Turkey “fails to separate the interests of the North Atlantic block form its own problems with Israel”.