2010-06-02 09:47

Bilateral trade stands around $2.6 billion - roughly one percent of Turkey's overall trade - and Israel has given crucial support in recent years to Turkey's efforts to prevent the deaths of 1.5 million Armenians in Ottoman Turkey during World War I from being labeled a genocide.

Turkey's Islamic-rooted administration has been increasingly assertive diplomatically in the Middle East in recent years and has tried to mediate Israeli talks with Syria. But relations with Israel have been deteriorating steadily since Israel's Gaza war.

Erdogan walked off the stage at the World Economic Forum last year after berating Israel's President Shimon Peres over the Gaza war.

In January, Turkish Ambassador Oguz Celikkol was forced to sit on a low sofa and was not greeted with a handshake during a meeting in Israel with Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon, who later apologized.

Turkey has since begun backing Iran's attempts to quash new UN sanctions over its nuclear program, another irritant in relations with the US and Israel.

The Gaza aid flotilla was organized by an Istanbul-based Islamic charity under the unofficial auspices of the Turkish government. Turkey's Foreign Ministry said four Turkish citizens were confirmed slain by the Israeli commandos and five other victims were also believed to be Turks, although Israeli authorities were still trying to confirm their nationalities.

Turkey sent planes to pick up its wounded after refusing an Israeli offer to bring them home.