"Israel has three paths ahead: It either apologises or accepts the findings from an international commission investigating the raid, or Turkey will cut off ties," said Turkey's Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu, quoted by the Turkish press.
Nine people, all of Turkish nationality, were killed on 31 May, when the Israeli navy intercepted ships carrying aid and pro-Palestinian activists towards the Gaza Strip (see 'Background').
Turkey withdrew its ambassador to Israel, cancelled joint military operations and barred Israeli military aircraft from Turkish airspace after the incident.
Foreign media were quick to report that Davutoğlu's statement was the first time Ankara has explicitly threatened to cut ties with Israel, having previously said it was reviewing relations with the Jewish state.
However, Turkish officials stressed the nuances of the statement, EurActiv Turkey reported.
A spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Burak Özügergin, confirmed what Davutoğlu said about Turkey-Israel relations. But he also mentioned that "diplomatic break" does not necessarily mean that Turkey would not recognise Israel at all. Instead, the break would mean that relations would be affected "in a very negative way," he explained.
Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said his country had no intention of apologising.
"We don't have any intention to apologise. We think that the opposite is true," he told reporters during a visit to Latvia, according to Reuters.
US, EU come to the picture
In an effort to patch up the dispute between its two allies, the White House announced that President Barack Obama is due to meet Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington today (6 July).
In the meantime, Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini was quoted by French daily Le Monde as saying on Monday that he would visit Gaza "in the next few weeks," together with French Foreign Affairs Minister Bernard Kouchner and Spanish colleague Miguel Angel Moratinos.
The visit reportedly comes at the invitation of Israeli Foreign Minister Lieberman, who invited EU representatives to monitor the softening of import restrictions in the Gaza Strip, announcing plans to allow "civil" goods into the enclave.
Frattini said he was worried about talk of "severing relations" between Israel and Turkey.
"It is better to turn towards the future […] and wait for the results of the Israeli inquiry [over the flotilla attack]," he was quoted as saying.
However, Turkey is insisting on an international inquiry and rejects the idea that the instigators of the killings should also be the investigators.
Speaking about the EU's reaction to the flotilla attack, Turkey's European Affairs Minister and chief EU negotiator Egemen Bagiş said the first reaction by Catherine Ashton, the Union's High Representative for Foreign Affairs, which called for an inquiry by Israel, had been "a joke" (EurActiv 10/06/10).
In that reaction, Ashton had called on the Israelis themselves to investigate the incident. But Bagiş added that the next statement by Ashton on behalf of the EU-27 had been better.
