Technoloy Minister Ergun: Turkey will not incur damage from freeze of ties with Israel

Turkey will see no damage from the suspension of its defense deals with Israel and it will rely on its own resources, Science, Industry and Technology Minister Nihat Ergun said yesterday.

Turkey will continue to decry Israel’s failure to apologize for its deadly raid on a Gaza-bound aid ship last year, minister Ergun said yesterday, calling the raid a “piracy.” The recent suspension of defense industry contracts with Israel following the peaking of tension between two countries would cause no weakness for the Turkish side, a Turkish minister said yesterday. “Turkey might continue its way of relying on its own resources,” said Ergun during a meeting with a group of economy reporters in Istanbul.

He said Turkey’s recent approach of suspending military contracts with Israel would not result in “a downturn in Turkey’s defense industry.” “Work – in the defense industry – continues in other channels through other sources,” Ergun said.

The military contracts between Turkey and Israel are estimated to be worth around $2 billion, according to a Saturday CNN Turk report. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday that Turkey was enacting a “full freeze” of “diplomatic, commercial and military defense industry ties with Israel.” Ergun touched on the matter, giving the first signs that the trade ties might continue as they always have, excluding the millions of dollars in military contracts. Noting that Israeli politics do not help ease the current political turmoil, Ergun said that despite the suspension of military contracts and downgrading of diplomatic relations with Israel to the level of second secretary last week, the industrialists and business communities in both countries continue to trade with each other. “Trade ties continue to remain,” Ergun said.

Ergun noted that the bilateral trade volume hit $3.1 billion in 2010, jumping by 26 percent from $2.5 billion in 2009. Noting that Turkey’s exports to Israel in the first seven months of this year reached $1.3 billion and its imports reached $1.2 billion, Ergun said, “In other words, there is no downward trend in bilateral trade.” He said Turkey would continue to decry Israel’s failure to apologize for its deadly raid on a Gaza-bound aid ship last year, defining it a “piracy.”

08.09.2011

SOURCE: DUNYA.COM