Turkey and Israel in new diplomatic spat
Recep Tayyip Erdogan stormed out of a Davos debate with Israeli president Shimon Peres (Image licensed under Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.0 License)
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Sunday, 15, Feb 2009 01:25
Turkey's foreign ministry has summoned Israel's ambassador to Turkey to deliver a formal complaint about comments made by a top Israeli military commander against Turkey.
Relations between the two countries first came under strain after Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan stormed off the stage during a panel discussion on the Gaza conflict with Israeli prime minister Shimon Peres.at the Davos conference.
Israel's Haaretz newspaper has now quoted Maj. Gen. Avi Mizrahi as saying that Turkey was mistreating its Kurdish minority and was occupying northern Cyprus and should therefore "look in the mirror" before criticising the Jewish state.
Turkey's foreign ministry responded angrily to the comments and has delivered an official protest to Israeli ambassador to Turkey Gabby Levy.
In a statement, it said: "We have stressed that the relevant statements of Avi Mizrahi are ungrounded and unacceptable and as such we have requested an urgent explanation from Israeli authorities."
The Israeli Defence Force has said the top commander's comments did not reflect the position of the country's army.
On Friday, Turkey's prime minister told the Reuters news agency that he was dismayed by the results of the recent Israeli elections which saw right wing parties make gains.