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Turkey Has Guts to Say to Israel: `We Will Not Condone Genocide'

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  • Turkey Has Guts to Say to Israel: `We Will Not Condone Genocide'

    Turkey Has Guts to Say to Israel:
    `We Will Not Condone Genocide'

    Turkey and Israel's once-close relations have been hurt by the Gaza
    war. Turkey canceled military exercises this week, while Israel
    protested a Turkey state-TV series that shows Israelis killing
    Palestinians in cold blood.

    http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/turkey_has_g uts_202.html
    (Issue # 48, November 30, 2009)

    By Yigal Schleifer


    Israel and Turkey's once-close ties have entered a frosty period in
    recent years, particularly since Israel's invasion of Gaza this past
    January. But ties
    between the two countries took a further dive recently when Turkey
    indefinitely postponed annual military exercises because of Israel's
    planned involvement.

    Israeli officials this week also expressed outrage over a new drama
    series being shown on Turkish state television that shows Israeli
    soldiers mercilessly killing Palestinians, including one scene of a
    soldier shooting a young girl at point-blank range.

    Observers say the new tension between the two countries may be another
    indication that Turkey's changing domestic and foreign policy
    considerations are leading to a redefinition of the country's
    relationship with Israel.

    `In Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu's ideological framework,
    Israel doesn't play a central role. Things have changed,' says Ofra
    Bengio, an expert on Turkey at the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle
    Eastern and African Studies at Tel Aviv University.



    Ankara, for the past few years, has actively sought to establish
    itself as a kind of regional soft-power broker, working to strengthen
    relations with neighbors that it has previously kept at an arm's
    length, most notably Syria and Iran, both of which flank its eastern
    border.

    Turkey also inked an agreement with Armenia recently that will move
    the two long-hostile countries toward renewed diplomatic ties.

    Davutoglu - the main architect of this new foreign policy - and 10 other
    ministers visited Syria on Oct. 13 for the first meeting of a newly
    created `Strategic Cooperation Council' and to sign an agreement doing
    away with visa requirements between the two countries. This change
    reflects a fundamental shift from the period when Turkey and Israel
    began developing their strategic relationship. At the time, the two
    looked at countries like Syria as a common threat. Turkey and Syria
    almost went to war in the late 1990s after Ankara accused Damascus of
    supporting the separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party.

    But observers say that domestic changes in Turkey, particularly the
    diminishing power of the military, are also playing a role in the
    changing nature of Turkey and Israel's relationship.

    `Had it been up to the military, the exercise would have continued as
    planned, but the military can't dictate its policies on the government
    the way it used to,' says Lale Kemal, a military affairs analyst based
    in Ankara. `The equation is changing. We see this in other areas and
    in the Turkish-Israeli relationship also.'

    Yigal Schleifer is a freelance reporter based in Istanbul. His work
    has appeared in many newspapers.
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