Turkish PM says navy will escort aid ships to Gaza

[September 09, 2011]  ANKARA, Turkey (AP) -- Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan stepped up his belligerent rhetoric against Israel, saying that the country's warships will escort Turkish Gaza-bound aid ships in the future to prevent a repeat of last year's Israeli raid on a flotilla that killed nine people.

Erdogan's comments to Al-Jazeera television broadcast on Thursday was the first time Turkey said it will send warship to help attempts to break Israel's blockade of Gaza. The country had already announced it would increase navy patrols in the eastern Mediterranean in response to Israel's refusal to apologize for the raid.

"At the moment, there is no doubt that the Turkish military ships' primary duty is to protect (Turkish) ships," Anatolia quoted Erdogan as telling Al-Jazeera. "We will be making humanitarian aid. This aid will no longer be subjected to any kind of attack as the Mavi Marmara was."

Eight Turks and a Turkish American were killed aboard the Turkish ship, Mavi Marmara, that was part of an international flotilla trying to break the blockade, which Israel imposed in 2007 to keep militants from bringing weapons into Gaza.

Dan Meridor, the Israeli Cabinet minister in charge of intelligence, said Friday that Erdogan's threat was "grave and serious."

"Turkey, which declares that Israel is not above international law, must understand that it isn't either," he said.

"I do not think it would be correct to get into verbal saber rattling with him now," Meridor told Army Radio. "I think that our silence is the best answer, and I hope this will pass."

"I think anyone who is listening can make their own mind up about him and the direction he has chosen," Meridor said.

A U.N. report into the raid, released last week, said violent activists on board the Mavi Marmara had attacked the raiding naval commandos and described the blockade of Gaza as legitimate, although it also accused Israel of using disproportionate force against the activists.

Turkey rejected the report's findings saying it would never recognize the blockade's legitimacy and insisted on an Israeli apology as well as compensation for the deaths as a precondition for normalization of a relationship once seen as a cornerstone of regional stability.

Last week, it slapped a series of sanctions on Israel -- once a top military trading partner -- that included the expelling of senior Israeli diplomats and the suspension of all military deals. It has also wowed to back the Palestinians bid for recognition of their statehood at the United Nations.

Israel has expressed regret for the loss of lives aboard the flotilla but has refused to apologize saying its forces acted in self-defense. It has also said it was time for the two countries to restore their former close ties.

[Associated Press; By SUZAN FRASER]

Matti Friedman in Jerusalem contributed to this report.

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