Turkish parliament suspends friendship with Israel

PanARMENIAN.Net - Mounting tensions between Israel and Turkey have begun taking their toll on inter-parliamentary bridges of friendship as well.

Members of parliament’s Israel inter-parliamentary friendship group, which was presided over by Justice and Development Party, or AKP, deputy Nursuna Memecan during the last legislative term, resigned en masse following Israel’s Gaza offensive, followed soon thereafter by the abolition of the commission in its entirety. The name of the Israeli friendship group has also been removed from parliament’s registries and its website, which contains the lists of friendship groups with 105 different countries.

The Turkish parliament is leaning toward putting its relations with Israel in the deep freezer, just as the government is considering. The suspension of official contacts and the cancellation of mutual visits are all on the agenda.

The Israel friendship group will not be established in the Parliament’s 24th term unless détente begins to ensue between the two countries by Oct. 1 when parliament is set to reconvene. Aside from the ruling AKP, neither the main opposition CHP nor the Nationalist Movement Party, or MHP, are inclined to send members to the Israel friendship group. The government, in fact, immediately wrote Israel off, even though it had already rolled into action to establish friendship groups with other countries’ parliaments quite some time ago, Hurriyet Daily News reported.