Turkey: Kurdish Insurgents Kill 11 Soldiers

On Saturday, the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) killed 11 and wounded 14 Turkish soldiers in an attack on a military post and a mine explosion near the border with Iraq. The first reaction of the Turkish daily Hurriyet was noteworthy: "250 PKK Members Attacked! Not a Clash but a Real War! It Lasted 5 Hours!"

The Turkish military responded by killing Kurdish separatists. Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) stated that F-16s have been bombarding northern Iraq alongside operations by commandos and the elite force, the "Maroon Berets".

Turkey Inside Line: Ankara’s Attack in Iraq; Relations with Israel

Turkish President Abdullah Gul condemned the PKK's attack and said that operations are going to continue without pause. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that PKK, once again, proved that it is a "pawn". He continued:

The terrorist organisation --- today once again --- is going towards bloody actions ...to sabotage the economic, social, and democratic development process recently initiated by Turkey which gained international importance .

The Chairman of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (TBMM), Mehmet Ali Sahin, responded to media in an unusual manner: "I am still waiting a satisfactory statement from the General Staff regarding our martyrs."

Opposition parties all targeted Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The Republican People's Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu said that the Erdogan government is weaking the anti-terrorism struggle and called on the government to show the "required" resolution.

The leader of the National Movement Party (MHP), Devlet Bahceli, said:

The architect of this dark picture is Erdogan. The government is responsible! The National Security Council (comprised of the Chief of Staff, select members of the Council of Ministers, and the President of the Republic) must convene and the government must take an early election decision. State of emergency must be declared in the region! They must give up the Kurdish initiative!

The Deputy Chairman of the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), Bengi Yildiz, criticized the government harshly but, unsurprisingly, from a very different position:

Even if you kill more 10-20-100 thousand people, even if you put 10,000 people in prisons, even if you kill not just one but 20 MPs of BDP, even if you kill all mayors and put them in prisons, you cannot solve this problem with violence, oppression and tyranny!

We Kurds have a famous statement for this: "We hit the full pot with an empty one", so  we have nothing to lose. Let those who have full pots think!

Yildiz's public statement was interpreted as a "threat" by most Turkish newspapers.

Middle East Inside Line: US & EU Back Israel on "Eased Blockade", Lebanon-Israeli Crisis?, Egypt's Manoeuvre, and More...

Two Powers Welcome Israel's Decision: The Obama Administration and the European Union have applauded West Jerusalem's announcement that it will ease its land blockade of the Gaza Strip. The White House called the decision a "step in the right direction". US State Department spokesman Mark Toner said the Obama administration was interested in seeing an "expansion of the scope and types of goods into Gaza...while addressing, obviously, Israel's legitimate security needs."

Gaza Latest: Varied Reactions to Israel’s “Eased” Blockade

The European Union's foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, added:

Israel must make sure that many, many more goods can get in to Gaza. I look with great interest at what the Israeli cabinet is saying. This is an in-principle statement ... obviously the detail is what matters.

Former Spanish PM Sees Eye to Eye with Israel: Spain had summoned Israel's ambassador following the flotilla crisis. However, former Prime Minister José María Aznar announced that he plans to promote a new initiative called "Friends For Israel" comprised of journalists, philosophers, politicians, writers, and other figures.

According to Aznar, there is radical Islam on one side and Israel that is providing the Judeo-Christian-rooted West with its Jewish elements. Therefore he says, this initiative must defend Israel's right to exist, as "if Israel goes down, we all go down." He added:

Israel is our first line of defense in a turbulent region that is constantly at risk of descending into chaos... To abandon Israel to its fate, at this moment of all moments, would merely serve to illustrate how far we have sunk and how inexorable our decline now appears.

The real threats to regional stability are to be found in the rise of a radical Islamism which sees Israel’s destruction as the fulfillment of its religious destiny and, simultaneously in the case of Iran, as an expression of its ambitions for regional hegemony. Both phenomena are threats that affect not only Israel, but also the wider West and the world at large.

Aznar also criticized Turkey:

In the wake of the recent incident on board a ship full of anti-Israeli activists in the Mediterranean, it is hard to think of a more unpopular cause to champion. In an ideal world, no state, let alone a recent ally of Israel such as Turkey, would have sponsored and organized a flotilla whose sole purpose was to create an impossible situation for Israel: making it choose between giving up its security policy and the naval blockade, or risking the wrath of the world.

Lebanon-Israel Crisis Approaching?: Lebanon aid ship Miriam is set to sail to Gaza on Sunday. Israeli officials accused Hezbollah of being behind the mission; Hezbollah rejected the claim.

In response, Israel told the United Nations on Friday that this could "affect the peace and security of the region" and said it reserved its right to use "all necessary means" to stop the ships. Israel's ambassador to the UN, Gabriela Shalev, wrote:

It appears that a small number of ships plan to depart from Lebanon and sail to the Gaza Strip which is under the control of the Hamas terrorist regime while those who organize this action claim that they wish to break the blockade on Gaza and to bring humanitarian assistance to the people of Gaza, the true nature of the actions remains dubious.

Meanwhile, Israeli officials added the Turkish-based Foundation for Human Rights and Freedoms and Humanitarian Aid (IHH), the funders of the Freedom Flotilla, to its terror watch list.

Egypt Rejects Israel Demand on Iran Aid Ships: Cairo newspaper A-Dar reported Friday that Israel issued a request to Egypt to prevent aid ships from Iran reaching Gaza via the Suez Canal. However, Egyptian officials declined Israel's request on the grounds of the "requirements of international law" which makes it "not possible to prevent the passage of any ship through the canal".

Turkey Inside Line: Ankara's Attack in Iraq; Relations with Israel

Cross Border Operation: The Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) announced on Wednesday that three commando divisions, supported with one special forces battalio,n followed PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party) guerillas/terrorists up to 3 kilometres across the Iraqi border. It was stated that four PKK followers were killed.

This was the first operation since February 2008, when 240 guerillas/terrorists and 27 Turkish soldiers were killed.

Meanwhile, ten PKK members who returned to Turkey in October as part of the government’s initiative to resolve the Kurdish issue were arrested Thursday. Charges against the group were brought in two separate indictments: the festivities that welcomed them back to Turkey led to the allegation “being a member of a terrorist organization” and the statements they subsequently gave constituted “making propaganda for a terrorist organization”.

Turkish-Israeli Relations: Israeli Government officials persuaded activists, led by former member of Parliament Alex Goldfarb and Modi’in Meretz activist Pinhas Har-Zahav to cancel the voyage to northern Cyprus, in a "reverse flotilla" to protest those trying to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza.

Israeli officials were reportedly concerned that the manoeuvre ould remind international media of the Gaza flotilla when most attention had shifted to issues like the British Petroleum spill in the Gulf of Mexico and the World Cup.

In the United States, two lawmakers warned Turkey over its tension with Israel and its close relations with Iran. "There will be a cost if Turkey stays on its present heading of growing closer to Iran and more antagonistic to the state of Israel," Representative Mike Pence, the third-ranking Republican in the House of Representatives, said. Pence added that he was ready to reevaluate his past reluctance to support a congressional resolution denouncing World War I-era killings of Armenians by Ottoman forces as "genocide".

Democratic Representative Eliot Engel called Turkey's actions "disgraceful", adding that although Ankara was a member of NATO, it had stopped looking westward.

After Ankara's called its under-18 football team back from Israel, the European Volleyball Confederation announced on Thursday that four matches between Israeli and Turkish teams in women league have been canceled.

UPDATED Gaza Latest (17 June): Israel "Eases Blockade"; Turkey Suspends Military Agreements with Israel; Reactions to Israeli Enquiry

UPDATED 1020 GMT: Would you like a story that might be even bigger than Israel's announcement of a revised blockade policy? Try this from Zaman:

"The Defense Industry Implementation Committee (SSİK) convened under the chairmanship of PM Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to take up the issue of military agreements and projects with Israel. Turkey -- which recalled its ambassador to Tel Aviv and cancelled three military exercises in the aftermath of a bloody Israeli raid on the Mavi Marmara aid ship -- has shelved 16 bilateral agreements due to Israel's refusal to apologize for the killings or pay compensation.

Thus, all Turkish-Israeli agreements at the state level have been cancelled....

All bilateral projects in the field of military training and cooperation will be frozen; a $757 million plane and tank modernization project and a missile project worth over $1.5 billion have already been shelved. The majority of work on these projects was planned to be cooperative Turkish-Israeli efforts.

Gaza Flotilla Aftermath: Does This Video Show Israeli Commandos “Executing” Turkish-American Furkan Dogan?

UPDATED 0945 GMT: The Israeli Prime Minister's Office has announced that Israel will ease its land blockade on Gaza, expanding the number of products allowed into the area, including construction materials: "It was agreed to liberalize the system by which civilian goods enter Gaza (and) expand the inflow of materials for civilian projects that are under international supervision."

The statement said "existing security procedures to prevent the inflow of weapons and war materiel" would continue. There was no reference to Israel's sea blockade.

Both Turkey and Amnesty International have criticised Israel's plan for an enquiry into the military operation against the Freedom Flotilla, with three Israeli members joined by two international observers, Nobel Peace Prize winner David Trimble of Northern Ireland and Ken Watkin, former judge advocate general of the Canadian military.

The head of the Middle East and North Africa division of Amnesty International, Malcolm Smart, said: "The structure of the government-appointed committee brings disappointment. This was a missed opportunity." He added that the probe lacked sufficient independence from the Government to reach meaningful conclusions and that the findings of the committee would be unusable for future legal actions in regard to the events that occurred during the flotilla raid.

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu was quoted by Agence France Presse, "We have no trust at all that Israel, a country that has carried out such an attack on a civilian convoy in international waters, will conduct an impartial investigation.

In Ankara, ministers of the Erdogan Government clearly agreed on three points: Israel committed a crime and must acknowledge this; Israel must apologize to both the Turkish state and its citizens; and Israel must give compensation to the families of people it killed, to the wounded citizens, and to Turkish citizens who were forcefully taken from the Flotilla and arrested. Turkey's ambassador to Israel remains in Ankara.

The Turkish-Israeli tension is causing ripples in the US, with Jewish groups debating a response. “There are lines that mustn't be crossed, and we have seen over the last weeks those lines aggressively crossed,” said Jason Isaacson, the director of international affairs for the American Jewish Committee, and added: ”The dilemma is to honor the legacy of Turkey's hospitality and integration of its Jews in its society.”

The Jewish Telegraphic Agency also put out this "undecided" position. The organisation said:

The fragile consensus emerging from the establishment Jewish organizational leadership is that the relationship it has cultivated over the decades with Turkey is worth preserving -- at least for now.

However, speaking to to RFE/RL's Armenian Service on Monday, Washington Times journalist Eli Lake insisted that Turkey can no longer count on the backing of the powerful Jewish lobby in the United States in its efforts to block a congressional resolution recognizing the Armenian genocide.

He added, "One of the prizes of the Turks in their relationship with Israel was support from the American Jewish community in Washington. After the flotilla incident, I would say that that support for now has dried up."

Gaza Latest (15 June): US & Britain Welcome Israeli Enquiry; Abbas Opposes Lifiting of Blockade

UPDATE 0630 GMT: Mahmoud Abbas has denied the report that he opposed the lifting of Israel's blockade on Gaza.

Both the White House and Britain's Foreign Ministry moved quickly on Monday to welcome Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's confirmation that Israel would hold an internal enquiry into the assault on the Freedom Flotilla, with the three Israeli members buttressed by former Northern Ireland First Minister David Trimble and Brigadier General Ken Watkin, a former judge advocate general of the Canadian Armed Forces.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs issued this official response:

The Latest from Iran (14 June): The 2nd Year Is Underway….

We believe that Israel, like any other nation, should be allowed to undertake an investigation into events that involve its national security. Israel has a military justice system that meets international standards and is capable of conducting a serious and credible investigation, and the structure and terms of reference of Israel's proposed independent public commission can meet the standard of a prompt, impartial, credible, and transparent investigation. But we will not prejudge the process or its outcome, and will await the conduct and findings of the investigation before drawing further conclusions.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague called the Israeli announcement "an important step forward" and said, "Clearly it is very important that it is a truly independent enquiry and a thorough investigation that the international community can respect".

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee quickly welcomed Washington's "dramatic and courageous statement", adding: "[We] call on the Obama administration to act decisively at the United Nations and other international forums to block any action –-- including alternative investigations supported by the Secretary General –-- which would isolate Israel."

Others were not as positive. Turkey continued to insist on an independent international investigation, as Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu declared, “We don't have any confidence at all that Israel will conduct an impartial investigation -- as a country which attacked a civilian convoy in international waters, thereby committing a violation of international law....Any investigation conducted unilaterally by Israel will have no value to us.”

Critics claimed that the "international" dimension of Israel's enquiry was already compromised by the appointment of Trimble, a fervent supporter of West Jerusalem. Ha'aretz noted that the Nobel Prize laureate --- ironically, the second laureate to be involved in this crisis, as Mairead Corrigan was a passenger on the Flotilla --- had joined the “Friends of Israel” initiative launched in Paris on 31 May, an initiative which includes  Israel’s former ambassador to the United Nations, Dore Gold, a close associate of Netanyahu.

In another Gaza development, Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas said that the Israeli blockade should not be lifted before a reconciliation between his party Fatah and Hamas, Gaza's political leaders, and that the step should only come through a Palestinian Government led by the current Prime Minister of the PA, Salam Fayyad.