Israel apologizes to Turkey for 2010 flotilla raid
WASHINGTON (JTA) -- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu apologized to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan for the 2010 Israeli raid on a Turkish-flagged ship that left nine Turks dead, U.S. officials said.
The two men talked on Friday by phone, according to the White House, which posted a statement by President Obama on the subject just after the completion of his three-day tour of Israel.
"I welcome the call today between Prime Minister Netanyahu and Prime Minister Erdogan," Obama said in the statement. "The United States deeply values our close partnerships with both Turkey and Israel, and we attach great importance to the restoration of positive relations between them in order to advance regional peace and security. I am hopeful that today's exchange between the two leaders will enable them to engage in deeper cooperation on this and a range of other challenges and opportunities."
A senior White House official said Netanyahu apologized for "operational mistakes" during the raid on the Gaza-bound flotilla. Among the dead was a dual Turkish-American citizen. A senior Obama administration official described the call as a first step toward Israeli-Turkish reconciliation.
By late Friday afternoon, Israeli officials still had not disclosed any details about the conversation. It was not clear if Obama facilitated it during his meetings with Netanyahu.
The Obama administration has been endeavoring to repair ties between the one-time allies since May 2010, when Israeli commandos boarded the ship, which was attempting to break Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip. Passengers on the boat attacked the commandos during the raid, and nine people were killed in the ensuing melee. The raid sent already damaged Turkish-Israeli ties into a tailspin.
Netanyahu until now had resisted calls, including from some of his closest advisers, to apologize for the incident. Other factions in his last government strongly opposed an apology. Recent reports, however, had said that Netanyahu would reconsider once he had a new government in place -- something he accomplished last weekend.
This week, Erdogan attempted to backtrack from his most recent anti-Israel outburst, telling a Danish newspaper that his equation last month of Zionism with anti-Semitism and crimes against humanity referred only to certain Israeli acts and not the Zionist movement per se.
http://www.jta.org/news/article/2013/03/22/3122851/netanyahu-erdogan-talk