Turkey gives Israel deadline to free activists
Turkey warned Wednesday of fresh measures against Israel if it failed to free by the evening hundreds of Turkish activists detained in a deadly raid on aid ships bound for the Gaza Strip.
Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said he delivered the warning in a meeting with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Washington Tuesday as he sought her intervention in the crisis over Monday's boarding of the flotilla in international waters in the Mediterranean.
"I expressed our absolute determination on the following issue: if our citizens are not released in 24 hours, by tonight in other words, we will review our ties with Israel entirely," he told reporters here.
"No one has the right to prosecute people kidnapped in international waters," he said.
Turkish pressure appeared to be instrumental as Israel said it would free all the pro-Palestinian volunteers and rushed to deport them Wednesday, while Ankara sent three planes to collect its nationals.
Turkey has already recalled its ambassador from Tel Aviv and scrapped plans for joint military exercises, plunging already poisoned bilateral ties into deep crisis.
At least four Turks were among the nine dead in the bloodshed, which occurred on a Turkish-flagged ship carrying hundreds of activists, mostly Turks.
In another warning issued via Washington, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan told US President Barack Obama that Israel risked losing Turkey, its "sole friend" in the Middle East, as he urged action against its "unacceptable lawlessness."
"Israel is faced with the danger of losing its sole friend in the region and the greatest contributor so far to regional peace," his office quoted Erdogan as telling Obama in a one-hour telephone conversation.
"The steps that it will undertake in the coming days will be determining for its position in the region," Erdogan said.
On Tuesday, a furious Erdogan called for an international inquiry and sanctions against Israel over the "bloody massacre." He slammed the Jewish state as "a festering boil in the Middle East that spreads hate and enmity."
Turkey's justice ministry is looking into both domestic and international law to see what action might be undertaken against Israel, Anatolia news agency reported Wednesday.
The three Turkish planes were expected to repatriate about 350 Turkish nationals.
"Our objective is to bring back everybody as well as the bodies," a Turkish diplomat told AFP.
Davutoglu said the aircraft would also take foreign activists.
The Red Crescent said it would bring home 17 wounded on an ambulance plane, kept on stand-by in Tel Aviv.
Two Turks with heavy injuries would remain in hospital in Israel, accompanied by a Turkish doctor, Davutoglu said.
The Turkish authorities are yet to release the identities of the four dead, but local media identified all as devout Muslim men involved in Islamic movements or charities.
A least three of them reportedly wanted to die as "martyrs."
"He was an exemplary man, an exemplary philanthropist. That's why martyrdom suited him very much. Allah gave him a death he desired," the brother-in-law of one of the victims, 61-year-old retired engineer Ibrahim Bilgen, told Anatolia.
Another victim, 39-year-old telephone repairman Ali Haydar Bengi, "wanted to go to Palestine. And he constantly prayed to become a martyr," his wife told the Vatan daily.
The Turkish activists were mobilised by the Foundation of Humanitarian Relief, an Islamist charity which spearheaded the campaign to break Israel's blockade of impoverished Gaza and deliver some 10,000 tonnes of supplies.
The bloody raid triggered daily demonstrations across Turkey, with the most fervent protestors camping outside Israeli missions in Ankara and Istanbul even during the night.
Muslim-majority Turkey became Israel's chief regional ally when the two signed a military cooperation deal in 1996. But ties have taken a sharp downturn since Israel's devastating war on Gaza last year amid vehement criticism from Erdogan's Islamist-rooted government.
Israel blockaded Gaza after its bitter foe, the radical Islamist Hamas movement, was elected to power in the territory three years ago.
© 2010 AFP
This story is sourced direct from an overseas news agency as an additional service to readers. Spelling follows North American usage, along with foreign currency and measurement units.
Turkey gives Israel deadline to free activists
