Ankara, March 08: Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu says Ankara is determined to resume mediating peace talks between Damascus and Tel Aviv to achieve peace and stability in the Middle East region.
“Turkey is determined to go forward regarding a Mideast peace agreement. Turkey expresses appreciation to President Bashar al-Assad for putting his trust in Turkey as a mediator. Ankara is steadfast to advance on this track,” Davutoglu said in Damascus on Sunday.
US President Barack Obama said earlier that the Turkish mediation should be conducted between Syria and Israel without pressure and expressed hope that Turkey would hold productive mediation talks once both sides were ready.
Meanwhile, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad praised Turkey’s mediation but expressed regret that the Israeli side was unwilling to make efforts to establish peace.
Under the auspices of Turkey, Israel and Syria launched peace talks in May 2009, seeking to reach a comprehensive peace agreement.
However, negotiations reached a stalemate in September after the resignation of former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.
Syria later withdrew from talks in protest at the Gaza war of December 2008 to January 2009, during which at least 1,400 Palestinians lost their lives.
Syria has called for an Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights as a precondition for peace between Damascus and Tel Aviv. Israel seized the Golan Heights in the 1967 Six-Day War and annexed the Syrian territory in 1981.
Raising Damascus’ ire further, Israeli warplanes destroyed Syria’s al-Kibar military site in 2007, accusing the country of harboring a nuclear reactor there — a claim Syria rejected
Meanwhile, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has expressed opposition to Turkey resuming its role as a mediator in indirect talks with Syria.
“After all the verbal attacks and insults toward us expressed by the Turks, they cannot be considered mediators between us and the Syrians,” Lieberman said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Turkey would not be an ‘honest broker’ in any renewed peace talks with Syria, adding that Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was not a ‘fair mediator.’
Tensions flared between Ankara and Tel Aviv in October 2009 after Turkey banned Israel from participation in a NATO air force drill.
Ankara strained relations further when it refused to take a television drama depicting Israeli soldiers killing Palestinian civilians off the air.
Last December, the Turkish ambassador to Tel Aviv, Oguz Celikkol, was given an official reprimand in a dispute over the Turkish television drama “Valley of the Wolves,” which depicted Israeli diplomats as masterminds of a child abduction ring.
——–Agencies