Israel’s deputy foreign minister has signaled he regrets humiliating Turkey’s ambassador, in an effort to defuse a diplomatic flap that has further strained ties between the once-close allies.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also weighed in publicly yesterday for the first time since the flap erupted earlier this week, gently chiding the Israeli diplomat for his conduct.
Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon did not go so far as to explicitly apologize for inviting Israeli TV crews on Monday to film how he forced Turkish Ambassador Ahmet Oguz Celikkol to sit on a sofa lower than his and denied him a handshake.
He also stood behind his decision to summon Celikkol to protest a Turkish TV show that depicts Israeli intelligence agents as brutal.
“It’s not my custom to offend ambassadors and in the future, I will explain my positions in accepted diplomatic ways,” Ayalon said in a statement to the Israeli media late on Tuesday.
The put-down enraged Turkey and deepened the rift that has emerged over the past year between the Jewish state and its closest friend in the Muslim world.
Israel has been worried by Ankara’s tilt away from the West and toward the Jewish state’s archenemy, Iran, while Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been fiercely critical of Israel’s use of overwhelming firepower against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
The Turkish embassy was not immediately available for comment early yesterday, but Israel Radio said the insulted Cellikol wants an explicit apology.
For years, Israel had enjoyed close military and economic ties with Turkey as Ankara sought to grow closer to the West. In 2008, the Turks mediated several rounds of indirect peace talks between Israel and Syria that have since broken down.
Israel’s war against Gaza Strip militants who had fired thousands of rockets at Israel for years signaled a sharp downtown in relations, exacerbated by Turkey’s improved ties with neighboring Iran.
Erdogan was outraged by the high Palestinian civilian death toll and days after the offensive began, he stalked off a stage he was sharing with Israeli President Shimon Peres at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, with the parting shot: “You kill people.”
Turkey also canceled a high-profile military exercise with Israel last fall.
Erdogan reignited tensions on Monday by accusing Israel of threatening world peace. That same day, Ayalon summoned Celikkol, and the frictions exploded.
A statement from Netanyahu’s office said the Israeli leader was satisfied with what he characterized as Ayalon’s “apology,” adding that the protest was justified, “but should have been expressed in an accepted diplomatic fashion.”
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS