Israel’s ultranationalist foreign minister on Sunday dismissed as chutzpah a Turkish offer to restore ties if Israel apologizes for a deadly raid on a Gaza-bound ship, saying it was up to Ankara to make amends.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu quickly disavowed the remarks, which included a panning of US-mediated peace efforts with the Palestinians, saying Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman was speaking only for himself.
“I think the matter of an apology borders on chutzpah or beyond,” Lieberman told Israeli diplomats in a speech attended by international media. “If anything, we are waiting for an apology from the Turkish government and not the other way around.”
Lieberman was responding to a demand, reiterated by Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu on Saturday, that Israel apologize and offer compensation for its marines’ killing of nine Turks in clashes aboard the Mavi Marmara aid ship in May.
The incident, following months of Turkish censure of Israeli policies toward the Palestinians, ruptured ties between the Jewish state and its once-stalwart Muslim ally and NATO power.
Envoys of the two countries held rapprochement talks in Geneva this month. Israeli officials say they broached a deal that would entail them expressing “regret” for the ship violence and paying damages to those bereaved or hurt, in return for a Turkish commitment to indemnify navy personnel against lawsuits.
A formal Israeli apology would only serve to fuel such legal actions, Lieberman’s deputy, Danny Ayalon, has said.
Lieberman and Ayalon hail from an ultranationalist party that is the often a fractious junior coalition partner to Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud.
Political sources say Netanyahu sometimes excludes Lieberman from more sensitive policymaking and that he sent one of his confidants to team up with the Israeli diplomat handling the Geneva talks.
Netanyahu distanced himself from Lieberman’s speech.
“The foreign minister’s remarks reflect his own preparations and positions,” Netanyahu’s office said in a statement. “The Israeli government’s position is exclusively that voiced by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and manifested by Cabinet resolutions.”
Turkish media quoted Davutoglu, a leading figure in Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan’s Islamist-rooted AK party, as casting doubt on the credibility of Israel’s government on Saturday.
“The fact that we have the will to make peace does not mean that others also have that will. Then this creates difficulty. It is very difficult to establish political will in Israel,” Davutoglu said.
Davutoglu noted Turkey’s quick dispatch of planes to help Israel battle a forest fire this month and suggested that, had the situation been reversed, it would have taken “days” for the Israelis to behave likewise.
Lieberman denounced those remarks as “lies,” recalling Israel’s aid airlift to Turkey after its 1999 earthquake, but he did acknowledge an Israeli contribution to the collapse of talks with the Palestinians three months ago.
“When you look at all of the components in the coalition, are we capable today of presenting a [peace] plan?” Lieberman asked rhetorically, citing sharp differences among Israeli governing parties over how and whether to meet Palestinian demands for statehood on territory Israel occupied in 1967.
He proposed a “Plan B,” a long-term interim accord with the Palestinians, which he said he would be prepared to finalize and present “any time.” Lieberman gave no further details.
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr yesterday vowed that those behind bogus flood control projects would be arrested before Christmas, days after deadly back-to-back typhoons left swathes of the country underwater. Scores of construction firm owners, government officials and lawmakers — including Marcos’ cousin congressman — have been accused of pocketing funds for substandard or so-called “ghost” infrastructure projects. The Philippine Department of Finance has estimated the nation’s economy lost up to 118.5 billion pesos (US$2 billion) since 2023 due to corruption in flood control projects. Criminal cases against most of the people implicated are nearly complete, Marcos told reporters. “We don’t file cases for
Ecuadorans are today to vote on whether to allow the return of foreign military bases and the drafting of a new constitution that could give the country’s president more power. Voters are to decide on the presence of foreign military bases, which have been banned on Ecuadoran soil since 2008. A “yes” vote would likely bring the return of the US military to the Manta air base on the Pacific coast — once a hub for US anti-drug operations. Other questions concern ending public funding for political parties, reducing the number of lawmakers and creating an elected body that would
OUTRAGE: The former strongman was accused of corruption and responsibility for the killings of hundreds of thousands of political opponents during his time in office Indonesia yesterday awarded the title of national hero to late president Suharto, provoking outrage from rights groups who said the move was an attempt to whitewash decades of human rights abuses and corruption that took place during his 32 years in power. Suharto was a US ally during the Cold War who presided over decades of authoritarian rule, during which up to 1 million political opponents were killed, until he was toppled by protests in 1998. He was one of 10 people recognized by Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto in a televised ceremony held at the presidential palace in Jakarta to mark National
‘ATTACK ON CIVILIZATION’: The culture ministry released drawings of six missing statues representing the Roman goddess of Venus, the tallest of which was 40cm Investigators believe that the theft of several ancient statues dating back to the Roman era from Syria’s national museum was likely the work of an individual, not an organized gang, officials said on Wednesday. The National Museum of Damascus was closed after the heist was discovered early on Monday. The museum had reopened in January as the country recovers from a 14-year civil war and the fall of the 54-year al-Assad dynasty last year. On Wednesday, a security vehicle was parked outside the main gate of the museum in central Damascus while security guards stood nearby. People were not allowed in because
RSS