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According to high-ranking sources, the diplomacy that resulted in an Israeli apology to Turkey over the Turks killed by Israeli soldiers in 2010 started some two weeks ago. American diplomats told their Turkish counterparts that U.S. President Barack Obama wanted to have an end to the Turkish-Israeli rift and wanted to open the subject up to Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu during his visit to Israel, if Turkey wanted an agreement, too.
On March 12, 89 members of the U.S. Congress wrote a letter to Erdoğan and asked him to retract his words on Zionism, which he did not; he said he stood behind what he said but he had been misunderstood.
It seems that letter triggered the U.S. move, since the White House wanted to see its two main allies in the region work together once again as they did until the “one minute” incident in Davos in 2009.
At around 4 p.m. on March 22, Obama in Jerusalem in his last hours there called up Erdoğan. Following niceties, he passed the phone to Netanyahu. The two prime ministers agreed to issue the same statement in their capitals that would clarify an Israeli apology and compensation for the families of the Turks who were killed. Turkey softened its attitude on the third condition for an agreement, which was an end to the Israeli blockade on Gaza. Netanyahu, who takes the issue as its right of sovereignty, said Israel had already softened the embargo on Gaza since the revolution in Egypt and would take further steps depending on the situation in Gaza. The final text says anyway that Israel would take Turkish assistance in dealings with the Palestinians.
Following the conversation of around half an hour, Obama took the phone back, told Erdoğan that he was glad to see this happening and said “See you soon,” which was actually a sign that Erdoğan would get a White House appointment soon (*).
Source: here
* Hmm. Seems like we will shortly see Erdoğan visit US again to meet with Obama in the WH.
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