Israel will never say sorry for defending itself, a senior government official said yesterday after Turkey demanded an apology for a deadly commando raid on an aid convoy to Gaza.
“Israel will never apologize for defending its citizens,” the official said, echoing remarks made last week by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“Of course, we regret the loss of life but it was not the Israeli side that initiated the violence,” he said.
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has vowed Ankara would sever diplomatic ties with Israel unless it apologized over the operation which left nine people dead, all of them Turkish nationals.
But Israeli officials reacted angrily to Turkey’s threats.
“When you want an apology, you don’t use threats or ultimatums,” foreign ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said. “Everything leads us to believe that Turkey has another agenda in mind.”
Davutoglu was quoted as telling Turkey’s Hurriyet newspaper yesterday that “relations will be broken” unless Israel apologizes for the May 31 attack or admits the raid was unjust.
Turkey has closed its airspace to all Israeli military flights in reaction to the raid, Davutoglu said, adding it could be extended to civilian flights as well.
The threat prompted a blunt response from Israeli Transport Minister Yisrael Katz.
“If that happens we will take appropriate action and obviously ban Turkish airlines,” Katz told public radio, warning that a ban on civilian flights would have wider ramifications for Turkey.
“It would be a violation of European aviation regulations; it would harm all the companies that fly to Israel, not just Israeli companies,” he said.
In other developments, Israel yesterday dropped its restrictions on allowing consumer goods into the Gaza Strip, but retained tight limits on construction materials, redefining the rules of its heavily criticized Gaza embargo on the eve of Netanyahu’s trip to the White House.
The new rules, which come in response to an international outcry over the flotilla raid, should bring some relief to Gaza’s 1.5 million people.
The decision ends the use of a narrow and often arbitrary list of permitted items.
In a boost to the moribund Gaza economy, officials also said raw materials would soon be allowed to flow to Gaza’s shuttered factories.
Meanwhile, Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad met Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak yesterday for the first high-level talks between the two sides since they began indirect peace negotiations two months ago.
The ministers made no statements before their talks and officials said there would be no joint statement afterward.
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