Istanbul, June 29: Turkey has been blocking Israeli military flights from entering its airspace, Turkish officials said Monday, in the latest diplomatic fallout over Israel’s deadly raid last month on a Turkish ship carrying activists trying to breach the naval blockade of Gaza.
Officials in Turkey, one of Israel’s closest allies in the Muslim world, threatened to sever diplomatic ties unless they received an apology for the attack, which left nine Turkish activists dead.
Israel has not offered such an apology, saying its commandos fired only to defend themselves after being attacked by the activists.
The new measures do not affect civilian flights, and it was unclear how many flights by the Israeli air force would be affected. Before the ban was put into place, the Israeli military only crossed occasionally into Turkey’s airspace, Turkish officials said.
Reports in the Israeli media said a plane carrying Israeli military officers to visit the Auschwitz death camp in Poland had been barred from flying over Turkey. Turkish officials would not comment on those reports on Monday.
A Turkish official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity on a matter of international relations, said Turkey would reject Israeli requests to use its airspace “until there would be a change in their treatment of Gaza.”
The official said the Turkish government would also no longer invite Israel to participate in international military exercises hosted in Turkey. “After all, the experience gained in these exercises is used in launching operations on Gaza,” said the official. “We had to respond to that.”
For years, Turkey and Israel enjoyed good relations in a rare alliance in the Middle East between a predominantly but secular Muslim country and the Jewish state.
The predecessor of modern Turks, the Ottoman rulers, have welcomed Jews oppressed by Spain in 1501, paving the way for the improvement of Jewish existence in Anatolia and a historical friendship — long before the Turkish Republic became one of the first countries to recognize the state of Israel.
However, with the twist in Turkish politics towards a religiously conservative government in 2000s and the increasing military aggression on the Palestinian community has strained this alliance, bringing two countries at the verge of major diplomatic standoffs.
According to many political analysts in Turkey, the military operation against the aid flotilla may been the last straw.
Turkey has demanded an international commission to investigate the deaths of the nine activist and strongly rejected as inadequate the Israeli plan for few international experts to oversee a local investigation, talking about severe consequences.
The prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has used strong language to criticize Israel’s approach toward Gaza and continuously calls for international pressure to forces Israel end the Gaza blockade. Israel has maintained the blockade since the militant group Hamas, after winning local elections in Gaza, ousted its rival Fatah movement in a brief civil war in 2007.
The ban on Israeli military flights, which Mr. Erdogan confirmed Sunday in a news conference in Toronto, where he was attending G-20 meetings, will apply to individual requests filed by the Israeli authorities for the passage of their military planes flying through Turkey, a Turkish government official said.
“The ban on the Israeli military flights over Turkish air space has been active for a while,” the official said. “Israel’s last request came only days after the military operation on the Turkish aid ship and was rejected. Such demands will continue to be rejected until there would be a change in their treatment of Gaza.”
The official refused to identify the specific flight refused by Turkey but underlined that, according to the international law that applies to the use of a nation’s air space by the military of a another country, it was beyond their jurisdiction to question the purpose or final destination of these flights.
Together with the Israeli military operation on Gaza, Israel has been excluded from joint military exercises in Turkey and their regular training activities over Konya, a central Anatolian town, have also been halted.
Strongest signs of straining ties with Israel came early this year when Mr. Erdogan participating the Davos summit in Switzerland, walked off from a panel, after a strong worded rift with Israeli President Simon Peres over the military offensive on Gaza.
–Agencies–