Israel’s tourism minister on Sunday urged Israelis to boycott Turkey in response to Israeli press reports that the country has classified Israel as a strategic threat.
The comments threatened to worsen the rising antagonism between the formerly close allies.
The Israeli reports, all quoting unidentified Turkish media, gave varying accounts of what was written in the Turkish document.
Israel’s Channel 2 TV and the Haaretz daily quoted it as saying that Israeli policies are causing unrest in the region that could threaten Turkey. However, Yisrael Hayom, a free tabloid, said Israel had been defined as a “central threat to Turkey.”
The Israeli reports also said Iran and Syria had been removed from Ankara’s threat list, raising new questions about the direction of Turkey, a regional power that has been assertive in its outreach to the Muslim world, but insists it is not turning away from long-standing alliances with the West. Turkey has the second-largest military in NATO.
A senior Turkish Foreign Ministry official said it “has not and will not declare” the contents of the confidential document prepared by the National Security Council that the Israeli press cited. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press, called the Israeli media reports “nothing more than speculation.”
While the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Foreign Ministry had no comment, the unconfirmed reports were enough to set off Tourism Minister Stas Misezhnikov, a political ally of hardline Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman.
“There is no hostility between the two peoples and ties with Turkey are important to the state of Israel,” Misezhnikov said through a spokesman, adding however: “Turkey must be totally boycotted as a tourism destination to preserve the national honor.”
Turkey had been a major tourism destination for Israelis, with 560,000 streaming to its sites and beaches in 2008, according to Israeli tourism officials. Turkey’s Tourism and Culture Ministry reported that 2,600 Israelis visited the country in June.
Tensions have been increasing since Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government took power in 2003.
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