Aid convoy spurs crisis between Turkey and Egypt

The foreign ministers of the two countries have been engaged in intense diplomatic traffic since late Tuesday in order to peacefully resolve the problem stemming from an aid convoy's passage to Gaza. FM Davutoğlu is expected to visit Egypt soon.

While just a month ago the two countries decided to join hands for regional peace, an aid convoy bringing relief supplies to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip has sparked a diplomatic crisis between Turkey and Egypt.

Since late Tuesday, the foreign ministers of the two countries have been engaged in intense diplomatic traffic to peacefully resolve the problem, said diplomats. But the tension escalated when Egyptian security forces clashed with members of the convoy, which included five Turkish deputies. About 55 people were injured in clashes late Tuesday, and an Egyptian soldier was shot dead during a violent protest at the Egypt-Gaza border yesterday, according to news reports from Egypt.

“We are working on the modalities of the aid convoy’s passage to Gaza,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Burak Özügergin told the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review. The convoy led by left-wing British politician George Galloway passed through Turkey in early December.

Cairo wants the aid convoy to cross Gaza from Egypt’s El Arish port part by part without turning it into a political show, while the members of the convoy refused to enter Gaza at once, saying they will first wait for their colleagues from Syria. Egyptian authorities also say the food and other supplies should go to Gaza via an Israeli-controlled checkpoint because the Gaza Strip is controlled by radical Hamas, but the convoy’s leaders want to use the Egyptian-controlled Rafah border crossing, according to well-placed sources.

Egyptian Ambassador to Ankara Alaa El Hadidi made it clear that his country did not prevent the convoy from entering Gaza.

“We have limited space in El Arish and because of logistical reasons, we told them [members of the convoy] to cross Gaza, but they refused to cross because they were waiting for the rest of their colleagues to come from Syria. We told them they should cross now and not wait for their colleagues,” he told the Daily News.

“It was they who refused to go to Gaza. We did not prevent anybody from crossing into Gaza. At the same time, we did not do anything to evacuate them,” the ambassador said.

Diplomatic sources told the Daily News that if the convoy did not include Turkish deputies, one of whom is Murat Mercan of the ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP, the problem would have been brushed over as an incident binding civil society, but that's not the case right now.

“High-level contacts are under way,” said a diplomatic source. Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu held a telephone conversation late Tuesday with his Egyptian counterpart, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, and Turkish Embassy officials in Cairo were exerting efforts for a solution to the problem, it was learned.

/Hurriyet Daily News/