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Turkey's Israel deal absolute capitulation: Analyst

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan

Turkey's restoration of diplomatic ties with Israel is “an absolute capitulation” by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a London-based political analyst says. 

Erdogan "has sold the lives of nine Turkish rights activists killed by the Israeli forces in 2010 for a petty price," Hafsa Kara-Mustapha told Press TV, referring to a raid by Israeli commandos on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla in international waters. 

Israel and Turkey announced on Monday they would normalize ties after a six-year rupture after Ankara reportedly discarded its demand that Tel Aviv's naval blockade of Gaza be lifted. 

“I think this is a total embarrassment for Turkey. It does come after the other capitulation in apologizing to Russia after seven months given the biting sanctions that Turkey has come under,” Kara-Mustapha said. 

The Kremlin said on Monday the Turkish president had apologized for the downing of a Russian military jet at the Syrian border, which triggered a slew of Russian sanctions that have dealt a severe blow to the Turkish economy.

"This is the curse of Syrian people. Erdogan is one of the contributors to the current catastrophe in Syria and now it is time for him to witness the slow-motion disintegration of his government as retribution," Kara-Mustapha said. 

Geoffrey Alderman, an author and historian from London, said the agreement had been motivated by "common strategic and economic interests in the eastern Mediterranean Sea" and the necessity in Israel to rein in Hamas.  

“This agreement is a compromise. In a compromise neither side gets exactly everything that it wants,” he said.

“But what the Israeli government in Jerusalem wanted was a Turkey reining in the activities of Hamas within Turkey and a de facto recognition that the Israeli blockade of Gaza carries on and that's what they got and of course the very lucrative gas deal,” Alderman added.


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