Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has reaffirmed his intention to travel to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip in May despite repeated objections from the United States and from the Palestinian Authority.
Over the weekend, US Secretary of State John Kerry revealed that he had asked Erdogan not to make the trip, echoing a near-unanimous refrain from US officials and analysts to the effect that the trip would bolster Hamas and damage US interests.
The Palestinian Authority (PA) has also called on Erdogan not to make the trip, which analysts worry is driven by a need to save face after he had to accept Israeli-Turkish reconciliation on terms that he and other hardline Islamist Turkish officials had long rejected as inadequate.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas visited Istanbul over the weekend to ask Erdogan to cancel his plans to visit Gaza.
The PA believes that a visit by Erdogan to Gaza would deepen Palestinian divisions, said Azzam al Ahmed, a close adviser to Abbas.
The US State Department called the planned trip "counterproductive." Speaking to reporters at a briefing on Monday, Deputy Spokesperson Patrick Ventrell added that U.S. officials consider the Iran-backed group to be a "foreign terrorist organization and… a destabilizing force."
Over the weekend , Erdogan announced that a Turkish envoy will not be sent back to Israel until Israel’s blockade of Gaza is lifted.
According to Turkish officials, Erdogan is sensitive to Abbas’s concerns, but believes it is important to make his visit to Gaza close to May 31, the three-year anniversary of the Israeli raid on the Mavi Marmara, in which nine pro-Palestinian Turkish activists to break the naval blockade of Gaza were killed when Israel forces stormed the ship. Kerry said on Sunday that the US had told Erdogan it would be better for him to delay the planned trip to Gaza.
“We thought that the timing of it is really critical with respect to the peace process we are trying to get off the ground and that we would like to see the parties begin with as little outside distraction as possible,” Kerry told a press conference in Istanbul.
Erdogan had originally been expected to visit Gaza in April, but postponed his trip at the request of the United States. He will travel to Washington to meet US President Barack Obama on May 16.
Meanwhile, Israeli negotiators traveled to Turkey on Monday to begin talks to advance the further normalization of ties between the countries following last month’s Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s apology to Erdogan over incident aboard the Mavi Marmara in 2010 as the Turkiosh ship attempted to break the Israeli naval blockade of Gaza.
The envoys discussed the amount of reparations Israel would pay to the families of the Turks killed in the Mavi Marmara raid.
“It was a good meeting. We agreed on all aspects, including an agreed text,” an Israeli official said, adding that a joint text was prepared but not released.
Turkey broke its diplomatic ties with Israel after the Mavi Marmara incident, demanding an apology and compensation.