Davotuglu boycotts Munich session as rebuff to Israel

By Asbarez | Monday, 07 February 2011

ANKARA (Today’s Zaman)—Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davotuglu boycotted a session the international conference on security in Munich over the weekend citing the presence of a high-level Israeli officials and saying he does not attend meetings attended by officials of the Jewish State.

Uzi Arad, national security adviser for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, was among participants of the session together with Davutoğlu. The foreign minister said he does not attend any meetings attended by Israeli officials because of Israel’s refusal to apologize for a deadly attack on an aid ship last May 31 which resulted in the death of eight Turks and one Turkish-American.

While Davutoğlu refused to attend the discussion, Osman Korutürk of the opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) did attend instead. Davutoğlu said he could not interfere with other politicians’ decisions about what meeting to attend but made it clear that he would have advised Korutürk not to attend as Turkey’s position against Israel should be a united one, reported the Today’s Zaman.

Davutoğlu spoke to Today’s Zaman en route to Turkey from Munich, where he attended an international conference on security on Saturday. In Munich, he met with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Davutoğlu said his meeting with Clinton was a follow-up to a phone conversation on Friday between Erdoğan and US President Barack Obama.


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