Turkey Top Diplomat Cancels Munich Appearance 'as Israelis Present'
Turkey's Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu on Friday said he had canceled a plan to attend the Munich security conference in protest at the inclusion of Israeli representatives in a session on the Middle East.
"I was going to participate in the conference but we decided not to after they included the Israeli representatives in the Middle East session," he told the official Anatolia news agency in Berlin.
Cavusoglu emphasized that the decision should not be seen as a move against Germany. "Our relationship with Germany is not limited with the Munich conference," he added.
There were no immediate further details but the move comes amid a drastic nosediving under the rule of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in relations between Israel and Turkey, which was once a key ally of the Jewish state.
In 2009, Erdogan famously walked off the stage at the World Economic Forum after an angry exchange with the then Israeli president, Shimon Peres.
Source: Agence France Presse
| Copyright © 2012 Naharnet.com. All Rights Reserved. | https://www.naharnet.com/stories/en/166440 |