Israel Matzav

Israel files formal protest with Turkey over Ahmadinejad visit

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is due to visit Turkey on Wednesday and Israel has filed a formal diplomatic protest with the Turkish government over the visit.

Israel's ambassador to Turkey, Gabi Levy, presented the protest to officials in Ankara, and the Turkish ambassador to Israel was summoned to Jerusalem.

"Israel is disappointed that Turkey has invited for an official visit a leader who denies publicly the Holocaust, and thus grants him legitimacy," was the message given to the Turkish ambassador to relay to his government.

Iran's president has sought an official invitation to Turkey for four years, but every time such a visit was scheduled, it was postponed.

In recent months ties between Ankara and Tehran grew closer as Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan attempted to play mediator between the Iranian regime and the United States.

This isn't just a question of ties growing closer. Something else has changed in Turkey: The political echelon has gone Islamist. It's the political echelon that has invited Ahmadinejad to Turkey. The army - which is secular - must be furious. And if you look at Ahmadinejad's itinerary it has Turkey's Islamist side written all over it.

Ahmadinejad will spend the day in Istanbul, where he is scheduled to meet Turkish President Abdullah Gul.

By going to Istanbul, and not Ankara, the issue of whether the extreme Islamist Ahmadinejad would lay a wreath at the mausoleum of the ardently secular father of modern Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, was averted. While Gul, a member of the Islamic rooted AKP party, will meet Ahmadinejad, the former Turkish President - Ahmet Necdet Sezer - would not invite him. Gul became the country's president last year.

One of the goals of this trip is to - you guessed it - bust another hole in the UN 'sanctions' regime.

Meanwhile, Ahmad Noorani, in charge of economic affairs at the Iranian Embassy in Ankara, said that the two countries would probably sign a natural gas deal during the visit. Turkish officials have yet to confirm the deal.

Noorani said the two countries agreed in May on the construction of a new gas pipeline to ensure a steady flow to Turkey, which suffers frequent cuts in gas from Iran during wintertime Turkey has sought ways to increase cooperation with Iran, especially in the field of energy. Last year, the two countries signed a memorandum of understanding to build a gas pipeline to transport up to 40 billion cubic meters of gas to Europe per year through a US-backed pipeline that would stretch from Turkey to Austria.

But US officials have since expressed strong opposition to the possibility of bringing Iranian gas to Europe via NATO-ally Turkey. The final agreement between Turkey and Iran has yet to be signed.

The new agreement would be about another pipeline that would bring gas to Turkey for domestic consumption. Iran would pay for its construction, which is expected to cost around $930 million, Noorani said.

One Turkish official said that Turkey is bound by the UN Security Council sanctions against Iran, and would not do anything that ran counter to those sanctions. He said that the deals that have been in the works for years are permitted under the current sanction regime.

Israeli officials, meanwhile, said that Turkey has been abiding by the sanctions that the UN has imposed on Iran.

The Turkish media is largely silent about this visit. Israel has extensive economic relations with Turkey, and the Turks have been the go-between for Israel and Syria in the current round of talks. I don't see Israel going beyond the protest that's already been filed. The Olmert-Barak-Livni-Yishai government is too weak to do anything else. And look for that gas deal to go through in some form. Yet another reason why economic sanctions against Iran don't work.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 3:46 PM