ANKARA, Turkey, Feb. 14 (UPI) -- Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert arrived in Ankara, Wednesday, for strategic talks between two of the powerful Middle Eastern countries.
Speaking to reporters on the plane to Ankara, Olmert said he expected talks on regional bilateral and economic issues and described Turkey as "a central, leading Muslim state that could be a bridge to Arab countries."
Recently he has been criticized for turning down a Turkish proposal to help start an Israeli-Syrian peace track.
A former director general of Israel's Foreign Ministry, Alon Liel, said that Syrian President Bashar Assad had asked Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to help launch such a process and that the Israeli government refused. Israel turned down also a Syrian proposal for a meeting at deputy ministerial level in the midst of the Lebanon war, Liel added.
Israeli officials suspected Assad wanted talks to ease international pressure following Syria's involvement in the assassination of Lebanon's former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri, and its aid to insurgents in Iraq. Olmert said that before peace talks begin, Syria must stop harboring Palestinian terrorists in Damascus and arming the Lebanese Hezbollah. Nor did he want to take any step that the U.S. administration did not want.
On the plane he dodged a question on whether there is a change of policy. "I am not going to into details at this moment. I was talking in general terms. The matters will be clarified in the talks," he said.
His evasive answer might have been designed to create a more favorable atmosphere before Thursday's meetings.
Israel was initially wary of Erdogan's government because the ruling AKP (or Justice and Development Party) is Islamic, but he noted that relations have "stabilized" and "gradually improved all along the way." He "quite often" talks to Erdogan over the phone, he said.
