Joke of the day - US calls Turkey’s discrimination against Israel unacceptable

Joke of the day - US calls Turkey’s discrimination against Israel unacceptable.(TZ).The Obama administration has expressed its dissatisfaction of Turkey’s discrimination against Israel in partnership activities within the framework of NATO’s Mediterranean Dialogue. Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Philip H. Gordon said on Thursday that the United States was not going to allow Turkey’s discrimination against Israel. Gordon was answering questions from senators at a hearing titled “NATO: Chicago and Beyond,” held by the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. When asked a question by Utah Senator Mike Lee, concerning whether there would be any softening of Turkey’s objection to Israel’s participation in the summit within 10 days, Gordon replied that there was a misconception about this issue. “NATO had not envisaged inviting Israel to the Chicago summit. Israel is an important partner of NATO, certainly an important ally of the United States. It is a member of the Mediterranean Dialogue, one of NATO’s manifold partnership arrangements. But the Chicago summit was never going to have a meeting of every single one of those partnerships, simply as a matter of logistics and time,” said Gordon.
Agreeing with Gordon on the misconception about the issue, a senior Turkish diplomatic source told Today’s Zaman that Turkey didn’t veto Israel’s participation in NATO’s upcoming Chicago summit due to take place from May 20 to 21, an important diplomatic summit to be hosted by US President Barack Obama. The same diplomatic source emphasized that Israel was not invited to the Chicago summit, but if it had been invited, Turkey would not hesitate to veto its participation in the summit. Gordon also underlined that there was no particular invitation to Israel for Turkey to block. Meanwhile, some Jewish leaders who spoke to Haaretz did not find this statement credible. The assistant secretary stated that the US would not accept any member country bringing bilateral disputes into the alliance, underlining that the US was very clear about this point. “If an ally is going to block the partnership with one country, then, the US will not accept that partnership,” said Gordon, stating that the situation had reached that point currently, and the US was not going to allow discrimination against a particular ally.
The countries that are members in the Mediterranean Dialogue, a NATO outreach program with seven non-NATO nations, were Algeria, Morocco, Egypt, Mauritania, Tunisia, Jordan and Israel. Gordon concluded by stating that the US would not allow certain countries to be blocked and others to go ahead with their participation. A senior diplomatic source said Turkey’s bargaining power is too strong. “We [Turkey] are blocking Israel in many areas. We avoid contact with Israel in any international meeting,” the same source said.Hmmmm....in view of the fact that Turkey is still importing Iranian oil at full speed, and does whatever it feels like the 'statement' of the Obama admin seems like a fairy tale.Congress should ask Obama about his 'trusted relation' with Turkey.Read the full story here.