Tyrkia vender seg mot Egypt

For­ly­den­der vil ha det til at Recep Tayyip Erdo­gan vil under­tegne en mili­tær sam­ar­beids­av­tale med Egypt neste man­dag. Sam­ti­dig vars­ler Erdo­gan at han ikke er fer­dig med å straffe Israel. Det kom­mer mer.

Erdo­gan sier det fore­lig­ger en plan C. Diplo­ma­ter må være ute av Israel innen ons­dag, og de mili­tære kon­trak­tene fry­ses, men fore­lø­pig er ikke de sivile berørt.

“If steps taken up to now were part of plan B [desig­ned to force Israel to apo­lo­gize for its actions in last year’s Gaza flo­tilla inci­dent, and pay com­pen­sa­tion], there will also be plan C,” decla­red Erdo­gan. “Israel has always acted as a spoi­led child in response to UN reso­lu­tions per­tai­ning to it. Israel assu­mes that it can con­ti­nue to act like a spoi­led child, and evade punishment.”

Sub­se­quently Erdogan’s office cla­ri­fied that pri­vate trade rela­tions are not sub­su­med by the sanc­tions; these com­mer­cial ties are valued at three bil­lion dol­lars a year. Instead, mili­tary agreements are being sus­pen­ded. This cla­ri­fi­ca­tion was issued after Tur­kish busi­ness­men deman­ded to know whether they are being requi­red to cut off ties with Israel, lest they face legal punishment.

Palmer-rapporten

The alacrity with which Tur­key reached its deci­sion to impose sanc­tions deri­ves partly from the fact that it belie­ves Israel is respon­s­ible for leaking the UN’s report on the flo­tilla to Gaza. Tur­kish sources insist that Israel made a U-turn regar­ding the UN investi­ga­tion, since it ori­gi­nally deman­ded that the report’s release be deferred.

“We agreed to defer release of the report for a few weeks, but not for six mon­ths, as Netanyahu wan­ted,” one senior Tur­kish offi­cial explai­ned. “We could have discus­sed issues regar­ding the text’s for­mu­la­tion, and even for­ged an agreement, but Israel’s leak of the docu­ment broke all the rules.”

Men i tyr­kisk presse er det uenig­het om Erod­gans brink­manship. Man synes han eska­le­rer en kon­flikt som kunne vært løst i minnelighet.

“Some­ti­mes the prime minis­ter acts on gut feelings, and then later tries to repair what he’s done,” explai­ned one mem­ber of par­lia­ment who asked to remain ano­ny­mous. “But you have to dis­tin­guish between Turkey’s wide­spread sup­port for the demand that Israel apo­lo­gize and pay com­pen­sa­tions, and cri­ti­cism about the country’s diplo­ma­tic proce­du­res. We were the ones who deman­ded that an inter­na­tio­nal investi­ga­tory panel be for­med; we send a dele­gate, and now we must come out and chal­lenge the panel’s con­clu­sions. The report does not order Israel to apo­lo­gize; instead it merely recom­mends that Israel express regret. In other words, there is a need to discuss the mat­ter with Israel and work out accep­table lan­guage,” the par­lia­men­ta­rian said.

Turkey’s media is divi­ded in its response to Erdogan’s actions regar­ding Israel. “Was there really a war that we have to win?” asked Murat Yet­kin, a pro­mi­nent jour­na­list for Hur­ri­yet Daily News. “The answer to this ques­tion is simple. No, there is no such war.”

Yusuf Kanli, for­mer edi­tor of the Tur­kish Daily News, wrote that, “were the Tur­kish govern­ment to respond to devel­op­ments in the Middle East with a less emo­tio­nal, non-religious atti­tude, rela­tions between Israel and Tur­key would not dege­ne­rate to their cur­rent state.“

Tur­key set to sign mili­tary pact with Egypt, after cut­ting trade ties with Israel
The alli­ance is not inten­ded as ‘revenge’ against Israel; Erdogan’s inten­tion is to extend Turkey’s influ­ence to areas it has not reached in past decades.