Diplomacy

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Greek Ambassador Blasts Turkey for Vetoing NATO-Israeli Cooperation

Turkey continues to veto cooperation between Israel and NATO – extending a policy that stretches back years and which diplomats had hoped would cease amid a U.S.-backed reconciliation effort – according to Greek Ambassador Spiros Lampridis. Speaking to the Jerusalem Post, Lampridis outlined both the scope of programs nixed by Turkey – all of them – and the impact that the moves had on broader regional efforts and exercises:

Following the Mavi Marmara incident in 2010, NATO member Turkey adamantly opposed Israeli involvement – “even the most innocent” – in any NATO programs, he said. These programs included joint exercises, intelligence exchanges, and research and technological development programs… By not allowing Israel’s participation in NATO programs, he added, Turkey was blocking participation with other Mediterranean countries, because Israel and other nations in the region – Jordan, Egypt, Morocco, Mauritania and Algeria – took part in NATO projects as a bloc.

Turkey’s efforts to undermine ties between Israel and NATO had been blasted for damaging interoperability between Israeli and Western forces, undermining among other things America’s power projection capabilities in the region.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan had explicitly bragged about his government’s repeated successes in cutting off Israel from NATO initiatives, but a rapprochement facilitated by President Barack Obama was to see Ankara suspend efforts to diplomatically and militarily isolate Jerusalem.

Lampridis lauded Israel for making a series of gestures designed to facilitate reconciliation, and addressed increasingly vocal accusations that Erdogan is driven by anti-Jewish animus:

Asked if he thought Erdogan was an anti-Semite, he replied, “Even if he is, is it the position a prime minister takes? He can do it privately if he wants. You don’t do it openly and expose a whole country – a country that has never been anti-Semitic in the past, to tell the truth, especially under the Ottoman Empire, when it was a haven for Jews. Other countries were not, Turkey was. What’s wrong with the guy? It really beats me.”

[Photo: Euronews / YouTube]