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Turkey not to normalize ties with Israel until demands met

Xinhua, September 26, 2011

• Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Sunday that his country's relations with Israel will never return to normal before Turkey's demands are met for apology and compensation over a deadly Israeli raid on a flotilla as well as the removal of an Israeli embargo on Gaza.

  He also accused Israel of being "very cruel" against Palestinians.

  "For the time being, I can clearly and frankly state that the relations between Israel and Turkey have been broken on the basis of an issue ... which began when a flotilla bearing humanitarian aid was trying to get to Gaza," the prime minister told CNN in an interview.

  Turkey expelled the Israeli ambassador and froze military ties and defense trade deals with Turkey early this month, as Israel refused to apologize over the ship raid in May 2010, which led to the killing of eight Turks and one U.S. citizen of Turkish origin.

  "We demanded that they apologize, pay compensation and eliminate the embargo on Gaza once and for all," Erdogan said. "If these demands are not met, relations between Israel and Turkey will never become normal again."

  U.S. President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with Turkish and Israeli leaders last week in New York on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, calling on its two close allies to better relations with each other.

  In his interview with CNN, Erdogan challenged Israel in its claim of Palestinians' "bombing and disturbing" the Israeli people with many deaths incurred, demanding "accurate statistics."

  "But on the other hand, we know that hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were killed," he said. "Only as a result of the Gaza attack, thousands of people were killed. These are very clear remarks."

  "The Israeli people are only resorting back to the issue of genocide in history," he continued. "And using that genocide, they are always acting as if they are the victims all the time. We said, for that, go ask Germany to pay its dues and they have. So Germany has paid and is still paying its dues to Israel."

  "But neither Turkey nor the Muslims in the region have such a problem. They have never exerted such cruelty on Israel," the prime minister said. "But Israel is very cruel in that regard. It shows no mercy."

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