Report: Obama pressured Israel and Turkey to hold secret talks
Lieberman reacts furiously to news of Minister Ben Eliezer's talks with Turkish FM; Netanyahu: I didn't tell Lieberman because of 'technical reasons'.
By Barak Ravid and Haaretz Service 01.07.10
A senior Israeli official's secret meeting with the Turkish foreign minister was apparently held due to pressure from the Obama administration.
Industry, Trade, and Labor Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer met Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu in Switzerland on Wednesday without first gaining permission from the foreign ministry.
Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, Turkish FM Ahmet Davutoglu. Photo by: AP
A senior source in Jerusalem on Thursday confirmed a report in the Turkish newspaper Hurriyet that the White House prompted the meeting and coordinated its details with both parties.
Davutoglu took off for Zurich on a private plane to maintain the clandestine nature of the talks, according to Hurriyet, and the conference room was booked under a fake name.
During their two-hour meeting, Davutoglu reportedly reiterated Turkey's demand that Israel apologize for its May 31 raid on the Gaza-bound flotilla that left nine Turkish activists dead.
Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman reacted furiously to reports of the meeting, saying the move had damaged his relationship with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
"The foreign minister takes a very serious view of the fact that this occurred without informing the Ministry of Foreign Affairs," Lieberman's office said in a statement immediately following the report. "This is an insult to the norms of accepted behavior and a heavy blow to the confidence between the foreign minister and the prime minister."
Lieberman on Thursday rejected Netanyahu's bid to meet, though denied speculations that his Yisrael Beiteinu party was planning to leave the coalition over the matter.
"The system of considerations here must be different… this is a big, strong and stable coalition… this is the time to think big and not just about what the headline will be in the newspaper on Friday."
The foreign minister said his response could not be considered an unwarranted "outburst", telling Israel Radio: "The Prime Minister's Bureau should have considered and dealt with this matter differently, or at the very least consulted [with me]."
"Suddenly we discover that the defense minister and other senior officials were in on the matter and that the whole process was coordinated with the U.S.," he said. "When you heard all these details and every half an hour there are more details, it becomes completely unreasonable."
Ben Eliezer, a Knesset member of Defense MInister Ehud Barak's Labor party, has over the past few weeks expressed concern over Israel's deteriorating relationswith Turkey. Ties between the once-close allies have come close to breakdown following a deadly raid by Israeli commandos on a Turkish-flagged aid ship a month ago.
Wednesday's talks were apparently aimed at repairing the diplomatic damage.
Later on Wednesday, Netanyahu's office released a statement that cited technical grounds for the failure to inform Lieberman of the meeting in Zurich.
Turkish officials had approached Ben Eliezer perosnally with a request for an informal discussion, which the prime minister had seen no cause to block, the statement said.
"In recent weeks there have been several attempts at contacts with Turkey of which the foreign ministry was aware," the statement said. "The foreign minister was not informed for technical reasons only. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is working in full cooperation with the foreign minister and will clarify the incident with him."
Lieberman's hard-line Yisrael Beiteinu party is the second largest in the government coalition, behind Netanyahu's Likud. But the foreign minister's right-wing views have made him unpalatable to many of Israel's allies and he has often taken a back seat internationally, leaving high-level diplomacy to Netanyahu and Barak.
Following Israel's May 31 raid, Ben Eliezer broke with other ministers in demanding an international inquiry into the incident, in which nine pro-Palestinian activists, eight of them Turkish, were killed.
Israel is conducting its own probe, led by a former Supreme Court judge and monitored by two international observers.
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