Word: turkishly
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...year ago, when Turkey's government forcefully criticized Israel's military assault on Gaza, and have since lurched from bad to worse. "One road accident, two accidents, three ... all of a sudden it starts to look as if they're not accidents - the road itself is the problem," says Turkish foreign-affairs commentator Cengiz Candar. "The Turkey-Israel love affair is over...
...This week's drama was provoked by a bizarre p.r. stunt on the part of Israel's right-wing Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon. Ayalon called in Turkey's ambassador to Israel and staged a demeaning photo op calculated to humiliate the Turkish diplomat as a rebuke for negative portrayals of Israel on a Turkish TV drama. Only Ayalon's last-minute apology prevented the resulting furor from causing a diplomatic breakdown. (See pictures of heartbreak in the Middle East...
...Switzerland last January, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has become a hero on Arab streets, and the latest diplomatic spat with Israel won't do his popularity any harm. Beirut daily Al Akhbar's headline on the Ayalon apology story praised "Sultan Erdogan" and exalted that "Israel understands only Turkish...
...Predictably, Ayalon's televised stunt was taken as an intolerable national insult in Turkey, whose moderate Islamist ruling party is more inclined than its predecessors have been to express harsh criticisms of Israeli actions, in line with Turkish public opinion. But even the usually critical opposition joined hands with the government in denouncing Ayalon's action, which was taken as a humiliation of the Turkish people as a whole. Within hours, President Abdullah Gul had issued a formal ultimatum that unless Israel issued a formal public apology, Turkey - by far Israel's most important ally in the Muslim world - would...
...Finally, on Wednesday, as the clock ticked down on Turkey's ultimatum, Ayalon came out with a full, written formal apology that satisfied the Turkish Foreign Ministry. "I had no intention to humiliate you personally and apologize for the way the démarche was handled and perceived," he wrote. "Please convey this to the Turkish people for whom we have great respect ... Although we have our differences of opinion on several issues, they should be discussed and solved only through open, reciprocal and respectful diplomatic channels between our two governments...