a Syrian civilian plane alleged to carry Russian munitions

Turkey says Syrian plane carried Russian munitions

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/11/us-syria-crisis-idUSBRE88J0X720121011

By Nick Tattersall , ISTANBUL | Thu Oct 11, 2012

(Reuters) - Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said on Thursday a Syrian passenger plane forced to land in Ankara was carrying Russian-made munitions destined for Syria's defense ministry, ratcheting up tensions with his country's war-torn neighbor.

Damascus said the plane was carrying legitimate cargo and described Turkey's actions as an act of "air piracy", while Moscow accused Ankara of endangering the lives of Russian passengers when it intercepted the jet late on Wednesday.

Syrian Air chief Ghaida Abdulatif told reporters in Damascus the plane was carrying civilian electrical equipment.

Turkey has become one of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's harshest critics during an 18-month-old uprising that has killed some 30,000 people, providing sanctuary for rebel officers and pushing for a foreign-protected safe zone inside Syria.

Russia has stood behind Assad and an arms industry source said Moscow had not stopped its arms exports to Damascus.

Military jets escorted the Airbus A-320, which was carrying around 30 passengers, into Ankara airport after Turkey received an intelligence tip-off. The Turkish foreign ministry said the plane had been given a chance to turn back towards Russia while still over the Black Sea, but the pilot chose not to do so.

Russian President Vladimir Putin had been expected to visit Turkey at the start of next week but Turkish officials said hours before the plane was grounded that Russia had requested the visit be postponed, citing his heavy work schedule.

Turkey said it would stop more Syrian civilian aircraft using its airspace if necessary and instructed Turkish passenger planes to avoid Syrian airspace, saying it was no longer safe.

Turkish Chief of Staff General Necdet Ozel said on Wednesday his troops would respond "with greater force" if the shelling continued and parliament last week authorized the deployment of troops outside Turkish territory.

Such approval has in the past been used for Turkish strikes against Kurdish militant bases in northern Iraq, where Turkey's last major incursion was in early 2008, when it sent 10,000 troops backed by air power over the border. 

Some 25 fighter planes were sent to a military base in the southern city of Diyarbakir, around 100 km from the Syrian border, on Monday, the Dogan news agency said. Turkey has scrambled its F-16s to the Syrian border before, although air strikes inside Syria would be a major escalation.

Turkey has repeatedly made clear that beyond like-for-like retaliation it has no appetite for unilateral intervention in Syria. Such a move would be fraught with risks, as the row with Moscow over the grounded plane highlights.

Turkey relies on Russia, which has blocked tougher U.N. resolutions against Damascus, both for its domestic energy needs and to help it realize its greater ambitions as a hub for energy supplies to Europe.

Many Turks see Russia as harboring sympathy towards the militant Kurdish Workers Party (PKK), which has stepped up violence in southeast Turkey in recent months. Turkish officials believe Syria and Iran have also been backing the group.

"We get 80 percent of our natural gas from Iran and Russia. Already the PKK card is being used by Iran against Turkey ... so the risks for Turkey of being involved in even a limited operation are huge," Ulgen said.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/europe/2012/10/201210101804010971.html

Turkey diverts Syrian plane to Ankara

Ahmet Davutoglu, the Turkish foreign minister, said that the plane was forced to land because of information that it may be carrying "non-civilian cargo".

Interviewed by TRT in Athens, Davutoglu said Turkey was within its rights under international law to investigate civilian planes suspected to be carrying military materials.

http://rt.com/news/turkey-lands-syria-plane-126/

Turkish F16s intercept Syrian civilian flight from Moscow to Damascus

10 October, 2012

Turkish F-16 fighter jets forced a Syrian Air passenger plane to land in Ankara over suspicions that it was carrying "non-civilian" cargo. The Damascus-bound plane, en route from Moscow, has departed after a nine-hour inspection.

The aircraft, which belongs to Syrian Air, was intercepted as it entered Turkish airspace on its way from Moscow by F-16 jets and forced to land at the capital's Esenboga Airport. The Turkish authorities said that it detained the plane on the basis they suspected it to be carrying "certain equipment in breach of civil aviation rules."

Russian diplomats who arrived at the airport were not allowed access to the passengers in violation of the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations.

“We are troubled that the lives of the passengers aboard the plane, including 17 Russian citizens were put at risk by this inappropriate act. Turkey did not inform Russia that Russian citizens were among those detained on the plane. We found this out through the press,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Aleksandr Lukashevich said.

The director of Syria's civil aviation agency told RT that the interception of the civilian plane and the search of its cargo compartment were a breach of the Convention on International Civil Aviation. She added that Turkey’s actions had endangered the lives of those on board the passenger plane.

http://rt.com/news/turkey-violated-civil-aviation-convention-138/

'Turkey violated Convention on International Civil Aviation' – airline chief to RT

11 October, 2012,

the Convention on International Civil Aviation was violated

We shall file a complaint with the International Civil Aviation Organization, with the Arab Civil Aviation Commission, with all the international humanitarian organizations, objecting to the inhuman measures taken against the passengers and our plane

Defuse the lexicon of slaughter - DAVID SCHEFFER

Defuse the lexicon of slaughter

IHT, February 24, 2012 Friday, DAVID SCHEFFER

=======================

Conclusion –

politicians should use the term “genocide” only when historians and jurists have determined. It is the responsibility of historians to establish the facts of distant events and of jurists to determine whether these were a genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, human rights abuse, political repression or other crimes against civil or political rights

Politicians would be better off using the phrase “atrocity crimes” – a term with no pre-existing connotations or legal criteria – to describe any combination of genocide, crimes against humanity or war crimes

==================================

Legislators play a dangerous game using the word ''genocide.'' In trying to appease millions of victims, they needlessly pit nations against one another. They should leave it to others to sift through the evidence and determine what killings occurred when and which ones amount to what crimes. Political judgments distort the search for truth and for justice. reason 1

Millions of people live with the memories that their ancestors were slaughtered out of prejudice. They demand that the story of their people's past be confirmed for posterity and that the perpetrators be condemned. But judging such facts, especially many years, perhaps even centuries, after they occurred, requires the discipline of historians and, if surviving suspects can be prosecuted, of jurists.

Some nations have outlawed Holocaust denial to avoid stoking the violence bred by anti-Semitism. Such intentions may be sound, but too often the results are problematic. Legislators and governments have variously decreed or denied that given mass atrocities were genocides in order to satisfy certain interest groups or national agendas.

example of reason 1

France and Turkey are now at loggerheads, for example, over how to characterize the deaths of some 1.5 million Ottoman Armenians nearly a century ago and whether to criminalize any refusal to call those atrocities a genocide. The French Parliament says ''genocide'' and wants to criminalize its denial; Turkey rejects the term and prosecutes those who use it. The Turkish prime minister has threatened sanctions against France and countered that France committed a genocide of its own in Algeria between 1830 and 1962.

Mass atrocities were indeed committed against the Armenians, but deciding to call them a ''genocide'' - or refusing to - is a dangerously divisive political game. It heightens tensions between countries and sows confusion about what really happened.  reason 1

Politicians should use the term ''genocide'' only when historians and jurists have determined, based on evidence and analysis, that a genocide - a specific crime defined according to narrow factual and legal criteria - has indeed occurred. It is the responsibility of historians to establish the facts of distant events and of jurists to determine whether these were a genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, human rights abuses, political repression or other crimes against civil or political rights.

Reason 2

Using the word ''genocide'' loosely can be tragically ineffective or self-defeating. It can intimidate powerful nations from reacting quickly enough to prevent further atrocities.

Example of reason 2

The United Nations and key Western governments failed to act in Rwanda and the Balkans in the early 1990s partly because their policy makers were searching for terminological certainty about the nature of the killings. The false notion arose that invoking ''genocide'' would require immediate military intervention. (The 1948 Genocide Convention does not demand this; the requirement that parties to the treaty ''prevent'' genocide can take military, political, diplomatic or economic forms.) And while the politicians pondered, thousands of civilians continued to die.

When in 2004 Secretary of State Colin Powell declared the killings in Darfur a genocide, he wasn't committing to United States to send the 82nd Airborne into western Sudan. He was simply trying to prod the U.S. government to take some action, ideally with others, to stop the atrocities. But others in Washington and several Western capitals froze at the use of the g-word.  (reaction to g-word)

Politicians would be better off using the phrase ''atrocity crimes'' - a term with no pre-existing connotations or legal criteria - to describe any combination of genocide, crimes against humanity or war crimes, leaving it to historians and jurists to determine, free of political influence, which atrocity crimes belong to which category. In the face of ongoing mass killings, this would allow policy makers to concentrate on what needs to be done to end a slaughter rather than debate how to define it. The Obama administration is rightly creating the Atrocities Prevention Board to free up decision-making from any confining lexicon.

France, as well as the United States and Israel - both of which are considering similar genocide legislation - could call what occurred to the Armenian people a century ago atrocity crimes. (Turkey might even tolerate that.) And Turkey could condemn what the Algerians suffered at the hands of the French as atrocity crimes.

If the United States, the European Union and the Arab League declared that the Syrian government was currently committing atrocity crimes against its own people, they would have an easier time getting the U.N. Security Council to refer Syria's leaders to the International Criminal Court for investigation, leaving it to the prosecutor to determine what crimes to list in an indictment. Rather than veto such a move, Russia and China might abstain from voting on it and give justice a chance.

By forgoing ''genocide,'' politicians would no doubt disappoint interest groups determined to use the label to describe the suffering inflicted on their ancestors. The Armenians, in particular, would find this compromise hard to accept. But their strongest case rests with the historians and the jurists now - not with the politicians whose loose indictments trigger the very tensions that can ignite prejudice among peoples and nations. Shifting to ''atrocity crimes'' in government speech, meanwhile, would focus the efforts of officials on getting more unified international responses to ongoing massacres.

NOTES: the U.S. ambassador at large for war crimes issues from 1997 to 2001, is a law professor at Northwestern University. His new book is ''All the Missing Souls: A Personal History of the War Crimes Tribunals.''

Turkey's self-confidence could tip into arrogance

The International Herald Tribune

Turkey tries to balance influence and confidence

With region in crisis, even some at home fear Ankara is a bit too brash

DAN BILEFSKY, December 24, 2011

As many praise Turkey's newly assertive leadership, there are concerns that its self-confidence could tip into arrogance and aggravate allies and foes at a critical time.

FULL TEXT

''We feel a strong pride in our strength and influence, much as we did during the Ottoman days.''

Yet, even as many in Washington and Europe praise Turkey's newly assertive leadership, such brashness is prompting some concerns both at home and abroad that the nation's giddy sense of self-confidence could tip into arrogance and aggravate allies and foes at a critical time.

its long-term goal of obtaining regional power status

Ankara faces a raft of foreign policy challenges on its doorstep, any one of which could derail its long-term goal of obtaining regional power status. An increasingly outsized national ego, analysts say, has already frayed ties with Europe. On Thursday, Ankara recalled its ambassador from Paris after France voted to criminalize the denial of the genocide of up to 1.5 million Armenians between 1915 and 1918 by the Ottoman Turks.

And with talks to join the European Union hopelessly stalled, many Turks have greeted the euro crisis with barely concealed glee, saying Europe has rejected them because they are Muslim.

Three neighboring countries

Closer to home, three of the most volatile states in the world - Syria, Iraq and Iran - are lined up along Turkey's southern and eastern borders. Syria is already in a state of civil war and Iraq seems to be flirting once again with sectarian strife and dissolution. Throw in the longstanding Kurdish problem and an Iran that erupted in 2009 and now may be descending into economic chaos, and the possibilities of regional destabilization, mass refugee flows and even war do not seem terribly remote.

Turkey on the rise politically

Facing such threats, analysts and diplomats say, Turkey needs to resist the temptation to gloat and swagger. Soli Ozel, professor of international relations at Kadir Has University in Istanbul, said that the European and American economic decline, coupled with the Arab Spring, was emboldening Turkey as it evolves into the model of democracy for the Arab world.

''Turks are saying, 'We are now on the rise, you are running out of steam and we don't have to take any stuff from Westerners,''' he said. But he added: ''There is a fine line between self-confidence and hubris.''

Turkey and its charismatic prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, could be forgiven for displaying some vanity. He has overhauled a country once haunted by military coups into a regional democratic powerhouse. He is so popular in the Arab world that there has been a surge in babies named Tayyip.

On the rise economically

While Turkey's economy surges - growing by 8.2 percent in the third quarter, second only to China in the world - Europe is sputtering; Greece, a long-time rival, has been flattened by the sovereign debt crisis. With its new clout as a leader in a region long dominated by the United States, this large Muslim country of 79 million people has also been basking in its role as the voice of regional indignation against Syria and chastising Israel.

Earlier this month a deputy prime minister boldly lectured Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. that it was Turkey, and not the struggling economies of the United States and Europe, that would win the 21st century.

Challenge on diplomatic front

Indeed, for all of Turkey's recent achievements, its aim of having ''zero problems'' with its neighbors has shown few successes.

Turkish officials tried in vain for months to persuade President Bashar al-Assad of Syria to halt his violent crackdown against civilians, before finally turning against him. Turkey has been unable to resolve conflicts with Cyprus and Armenia. Its recent decision to host a NATO radar installation has rankled Iran. Relations with Israel collapsed after Israeli troops killed nine people aboard a Turkish flotilla trying to break the blockade of Gaza.

In September, the limits of Turkey's appeal as a political model were laid bare when Mr. Erdogan told the Egyptian satellite channel Dream TV that secularism was not the enemy of religion and Egypt should embrace a secular constitution. A spokesman in Egypt for the Muslim Brotherhood party, which won first-round parliamentary elections there, told the Egyptian daily Al Ahram that Mr. Erdogan was interfering in Egyptian affairs. (Mr. Erdogan's aides said the term secularism had been mistranslated as atheism.)

Nor were many Kosovar Albanians amused in August when Turkey's minister of education, Omer Dincer, asked his Kosovo counterpart to remove offending paragraphs from history textbooks, which he said insulted the Ottoman Turks. Local historians protested that Turkey was trying to whitewash centuries of Ottoman subjugation.

The perils of standing in Turkey's way became abundantly clear at the United Nations during the annual General Assembly meeting of world leaders this autumn.

Mr. Erdogan was on the fourth floor of the general assembly hall when he learned that the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, whom he ardently supports, was making his address demanding full U.N. membership for Palestine. When Mr. Erdogan rushed to the nearest entrance to take Turkey's seat on the main floor, a security guard refused to let him pass. When Mr. Erdogan pressed forward, a loud scuffle erupted that was audible four floors below.

One Western diplomat noted that ''the Turks were literally throwing their weight around.''

Counter-argument

Yet Turkey's many defenders say the West cannot expect the country to play regional leader and then criticize it when it flexes its muscles. Moreover, they note, the country is entitled to defend its dignity.

At the Cannes summit meeting of the G-20 major economies in November, cameras showed Mr. Erdogan suddenly kneeling down when he noticed a sticker of the Turkish flag on the floor to mark the position where he was supposed to stand for a group photo, near President Barack Obama.

He gently folded it and put it in his pocket.

Limited Options to De-Escalate Violence in Syria

NPR, Talk Of The Nation 02:00 PM EST, December 5, 2011 Monday

Limited Options to De-Escalate Violence in Syria

intro

Over the weekend, as the number killed rose over 4,000, one U.N. official took the considered step of describing the situation in Syria as a civil war.  While much of the opposition to the government of Bashar al-Assad remains peaceful, (1) defectors from the military have taken up arms, (2) neighborhoods have formed ad-hoc militias, (3) political and military opposition groups have established a presence across the border in Turkey. 

Syria responded positively to an Arab League peace plan, but whether it will actually implement that plan remains to be seen.

The Arab League peace plan that the Syrian government has reacted positively to today calls for the withdrawal of armed troops, armored troops from Syrian cities. It also calls for outside observers to come in and for free access for journalists

France has raised the idea of humanitarian corridors to bring aid to embattled cities.

Former ally Turkey suggested safety zones along the border.

Opposition groups call for a no-fly zone, which as a practical matter would have to be led by the United States. 

What are the options for U.S. policy in Syria?

the Arab League

the Arab League sanctions has the symbolic effect of ostracizing Syria as a country from the Arab community, from the Arab world ; the signal that that sends to some of Assad's supporters who see Syria as the beating heart of the Arab world

Nabil el-Araby, the head of the Arab League, has already rebuffed the idea of this agreement with the Arab League proposal, saying they're just wasting time, these conditions are not acceptable.

The indications are lifting the sanctions seems rather unlikely.

Turkey   

a former ally of the Bashar al-Assad government and now seemingly among the most determined opponents

(a former ally)

Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the prime minister of Turkey, made an effort to rebuild relations with Syria that had grown very bad back in the '90s - this was over the Kurdish rebellion issue - but, once the new AKP government of Turkey came in in 2002, there were years of rebuilding going on. 

The prime minister of Turkey and the president of Syria would take vacations together. They would visit each other. A personal relationship began to develop. The free trade agreement between the two countries signed in 2007 showed a booming growth .. between southeastern Turkey, the Gaziantep area and Aleppo in the north of Syria. And now all of that is just reversed immediately, at least for now. 

(biz b/w the states dried up)

the Syrian consulate in Gaziantep area is closed. The taxis .. into Aleppo, crossing this border without any paperwork .. are all gone. 

these trade ties are much more important to Syria than they are to Turkey, and combined with all of the other sanctions, Arab League, European, Canadian, American, this could really start to hurt them. 

(no fly zone, safety zone along the border)

opposition groups in Syria say we need a no-fly zone as there was in Libya, a no-drive zone to keep those Syrian armored groups from moving around and hitting us in our cities.

-       There is not appetite for that in Turkey. most especially there is not if a Turkish military involvement is going to be heavy or prominent. for fear of intervention by Syria’s allies, Hezbollah or Iran  

Turkish foreign minister talked about the establishment of areas of protection for Syrians across the Syrian border in Syria, protected by Turkish armed force

-       To be clear, he said safety zone may become necessary if we see hundreds of thousands of people fleeing

-       Turkey has also made it very clear that they have no desire to be out front on this effort. There is really very little, if any, desire in the foreign policy circles in Ankara to be out front on this. They would much rather see the Arab League and the U.N. and preferably other folks as well involved. 

-       Turkey does not want to go into Syria and take territory. There was a moment back in the spring where the two armies were lined up side-by-side, and it was a bit tense. Neither side really wants to get into that kind of a confrontation

If Syria and Turkey somehow get involved militarily, Turkey's a member of NATO. It could entangle NATO in this conflict. Iran factor.

The UN SC

clearly many more people killed in Syria than had been killed in Libya when NATO forces intervened there

unlike the situation involving Libya, there is no agreement at the Security Council to issue a Chapter Seven use of force to protect civilian life. It's unlikely that there will be, but Russia and China oppose it. 

the US

the United States is putting its weight behind this effort (Arab League proposal), along with sanctions. However flawed these options may be, they are the best ones, given the potential consequences of further intervention.

with the U.S. now going into an election year, there will not be a huge appetite in Washington for raising the profile of this issue if they don't have to. 

the potential consequences of military intervention

Syria is not Libya for a number of reasons. Syria is an ethnic and sectarian mosaic.

the consequences of greater civil war would be disastrous for the surrounding region. It's connected to Jordan and Lebanon. It could potentially prompt intervention by its allies, Hezbollah or Iran.

the symbolic effects of any type of U.S. or multilateral intervention on the Assad regime, that it could really give Assad the ammunition he needs to increase his crackdown

Libya vs. Syria  

In Libya, half the country suddenly breaking away, and you had safe areas almost immediately within days.

Here, these rebels in Syria, they don't have that. They do not have an army that is willing to turn on its leader. It is still essentially loyal, especially at the higher officer corps level, and we are seeing anecdotal notes of defections. some of these defecting soldiers start to turn against their colleagues, but that is a long, slow, incremental process,

sanction

the goal here is: A, to change the regime's calculus, to reduce the crackdown but also to induce defections among Assad's supporters, some of the wealthy merchant families in Damascus and Aleppo, who may be sitting on the fence. If they're feeling the economic pain, they may shift over to the opposition.

Free Syrian Army

The Free Syrian Army has been organized in refugee camps on the Turkish side of the border. How big is it? How well-organized is it? Are they staging cross-border raids? What's going on? 

-       it's a bit opaque. The Free Syrian Army is made up of defecting soldiers. Within Syria, they are somewhat scattered. It's not easy for them to communicate. The commander, Colonel Riyad al-Asad, is in a camp in Hatay Province in southeastern Turkey. He's closely guarded.

geographical scope of crackdown

very much inside Syria. Even some of the people who have escaped to Lebanon or Turkey are very worried about secret service. There have been reports of kidnappings.

Peter Kenyon, foreign correspondent for NPR, joined us from Istanbul

Fred Wehrey is a senior policy analyst with the Rand Corporation who specializes in Middle East policy

Taspinar discusses israeli-turkish relations

Taspinar discusses israeli-turkish relations

September 6, 2011 Tuesday, National Public Radio (NPR)

ROBERT SIEGEL, host: Turkey is downgrading diplomatic relations with Israel, cutting off defense ties, threatening further moves. That as Israel refuses to apologize for the deaths of nine Turks last year. They were part of a flotilla to Gaza that Israel intercepted. A special United Nations panel had urged Israel to make an appropriate statement of regret. The panel also acknowledged the legality of Israel's blockade of Gaza, so Turkey declared the report of that panel null and void.

To get more of a sense of what Turkey's up to, we're talking now with Omer Taspinar, a Turkish scholar who's at the National War College and at the Brookings Institution here in Washington. Welcome.

OMER TASPINAR: Thank you.

SIEGEL: First, this crisis in Turkish-Israeli relations, before it, how important a relationship was it?

TASPINAR: Well, the golden age of the relationship between Turkey and Israel was in the 1990s. Traditionally, the relationship was strong. Turkey was the first Muslim country to recognize Israel. But the deterioration in Turkish-Israel relations is really a story of the last three, four years.

SIEGEL: That means it's not just what happened with the flotilla to Gaza that was the end of this relationship. There were problems well before that.

TASPINAR: There were problems well before that. I think the problems started with the failure of the peace process. And in 2006, first, Israeli military encroachment into Lebanon, the air raids, then the Gaza operation a couple years later and then it doubles. Two years ago at the Dublin Summit, there was a major fallout between Shimon Peres, the Israeli president, and Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan, but the final point came with the flotilla incident.

SIEGEL: As you wrote in a column about this that I read, Turkey wasn't just demanding an apology. It wasn't just demanding compensation for the victims' families, the victims of the flotilla incident. It also was demanding an end to the blockade of Gaza, a change in Israeli policy.

TASPINAR: Which was very confusing for the Israelis because the Israelis were told by the Turkish foreign ministry that there were two main conditions - an apology and compensation. Yet, the Turkish prime minister, a couple months ago, after the elections, included the third condition. This shows that Turkey feels very self-confident and Prime Minister Erdogan wanted to make it clear to the Turkish public opinion and also to the Arab world that this is not just a bilateral problem with Israel, that Turkey basically wants to play a leadership role on the Palestinian question.

SIEGEL: Does it strike you, given what's happened and how far Turkish-Israeli relations have fallen recently, that this is in any way reparable with any exchange of visits and further mediation or is this really what it's going to be for the next several years at least?

TASPINAR: I think this is a great question. And the Israelis were pondering whether an apology would be enough to put relations back on track and they came to the conclusion that there's something structurally wrong in the partnership right now and that what is missing is not just an Israeli apology or compensation, but in fact the peace process. Therefore, I think, unless we see a major improvement in the Palestinian question, we're not likely to see a normalization of Turkish-Israeli relations.

SIEGEL: You think that from an Israeli perspective the Turkish price for maintaining the old relationship (unintelligible) is too high for them, given what they're about to do?

TASPINAR: Exactly. The third condition that Prime Minister Erdogan put forward, the end of the blockade to Gaza, is something that no Israeli prime minister can contemplate. In that sense, they consider the Turkish attitude as a maximalist attitude and they don't see how an apology would solve the problems. We're very far away from the 1990s, the golden age.

SIEGEL: Omer Taspinar, thank you very much for talking with us.

TASPINAR: Pleasure. Thank you.

SIEGEL: Omer Taspinar is a professor at the National War College and also a fellow at the Brookings Institution.


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Israel seen increasingly isolated in Middle East

National Public Radio (NPR) September 3, 2011 Saturday

SCOTT SIMON, host: This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Scott Simon. Israel is facing growing diplomatic isolation in its region. Yesterday, Turkey expelled the Israeli ambassador and other diplomats from Ankara, and the popular protest known as the Arab Spring have eroded Israel's ties with some other neighbors. To talk about all this we have James Hider on the line. He's a correspondent for the Times of London who is based in Jerusalem. James, thanks for being with us.

JAMES HIDER: Morning.

SIMON: And let's begin with Turkey because Israel and Turkey had friendly relations for a number of years, but then last year Israeli forces killed several Turkish citizens on that ship that was taking supplies into Gaza. Why did the Turks downgrade diplomatic ties yesterday.

HIDER: Well, as you said, the ties between the two countries have been going down rapidly for the last year, but yesterday was the release of a U.N. report into that boarding of the Mavi Marmara on May 31st last year, and it said that Israeli's naval blockade of Gaza was legitimate, but it criticized Israel for using excessive force.

And so Israel was quite happy that its blockade was seen as legitimate in self-defense with security where it matters, but no weapons can get into Gaza to Hamas, but they were quite angry that they were accused of excessive force. Now Turkey was extremely angry that this was deemed legal, that the whole blockade. So they demanded that Israel apologize immediately and Israel didn't, so they turned around the very next day and expelled the ambassador. So that has now brought Israel's diplomatic ties with Turkey to an all-time low.

SIMON: Help us understand how important Israel's relationship with Turkey is and has been.

HIDER: It's been hugely important. Turkey was the first regional power to recognize Israel in 1949, and it's always had very close ties, particularly with the secular army in Turkey it's had very close military ties with Israel. They were top trading partners in defense trade.  Israel was selling drones to Turkey. It was upgrading its tanks, and in 2007 it's believed that Turkey actually allowed Israeli airplanes to go through its airspace to bomb a suspected nuclear reactor in Syria.

So that's how close the cooperation was, and that that is now disappearing is of great concern I think to both sides.

SIMON: James, are there any signs that Israel and Turkey at heart want to repair this breach?

HIDER: I think they would both like to step away from this breach at the moment, but it's very difficult for them to do without losing face. But this morning we're seeing Ban Ki-moon, the secretary general of the U.N., calling on both sides to heed the recommendations in the UN report to renew their diplomatic ties. The State Department has also been pressuring both sides and has very good ties to both sides to do so.

But there have also been reports in the Turkish press that Turkey is planning on beefing up its naval presence in the Eastern Mediterranean and may even accompany the next ships going into Gaza, which would complicate the issue very seriously.

SIMON: Help us understand why a lot of people in the Israeli government find it difficult to be entirely enthused with Arab Spring, particularly, for example, events in Egypt.

HIDER: I think they see in the long term that the possibility that democratic states in the Arab world would lead to a more secure situation, but in the short term they're extremely worried that there'd be anti-Israeli sentiment by these regimes for a long time, even as lots of them had close ties with Israeli like Egypt. And now with these bubbling sentiments there's a lot of anti-Israeli feeling in the Arab street, and Cairo threatened to withdraw its own ambassador last month; there was a shooting down on the Egypt - Gaza border.

And that has made Israel extremely worried because the Egyptian peace accord is the cornerstone of Israel's entire regional strategic defense, that it has this peace accord with Egypt since 1979. And if that were to be endangered at the same time that its other strategic partner, Turkey, was downgrading its ties, I think Israel should feel isolated and extremely worried.

SIMON: And Jordan?

HIDER: There have been calls for the end of Jordan's own peace treaty with Israel to be annulled by pro-democracy demonstrators. There's not any particular danger of that happening. The Jordanian monarch has proven quite durable and stable, but it's a reflection of the sentiment on the streets in some of these countries.

SIMON: James Hider, correspondent for the Times of London in Jerusalem, thanks so much.

HIDER: Thank you.