Turkey working to prevent Lebanese sail to Gaza
According to Israeli officials, Ankara deems additional flotillas pointless after partial lifting of blockade on Gaza. 'Turkey wants to lower its profile, let diplomacy take its course,' official says
Officials in Jerusalem were surprised to learn that Turkey is working to prevent Lebanese ships from attempting to sail to Gaza in violation of an Israeli blockade on the Hamas-run territory, the Yedioth Ahronoth daily reported Tuesday.
Israeli officials estimate that Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, who visited Damascus and Beirut last week, asked the Lebanese government to prevent the flotilla's departure as part of Ankara's efforts to ease tensions with Israel.
WTF? There is so much going on here... it's now Ankara, officials and the FM, not Erdogan, there's no demand of an apology from Israel, and Turkey just put the kibosh on the entire Free Gaza movement.
I'm guessing that in spite of Turkey's announcements that everything is fine and dandy, the warming relations with Greece and the multimillion dollar losses (real and potential) in revenue actually do matter to Turkey. In related news, while Israel lifted the travel advisory to Turkey, Israelis are staying away in droves. And NATO's pretty pissed that Turkey is sharing miltech with non-NATO countries.
Turkey has been described as a bridge between East and West. Right now, it's looking a little like this:
No comments:
Post a Comment