TURKEY: Minister says government has no negative attitude to Israel following TV drama upset

Record ID: 644801

  • Title: TURKEY: Minister says government has no negative attitude to Israel following TV drama upset
  • Date: 16th October 2009
  • Summary: (CONTAINS FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY) OPERATOR USING JIMMY-JIB ARINC SEEN ON MONITOR WIDE OF PARTY ON SCREEN ARINC LEAVING BUILDING PRESS MEMBERS (SOUNDBITE) (Turkish) TURKISH STATE MINISTER, RESPONSIBLE FOR TURKISH RADIO TELEVISION, BULENT ARINC, SAYING "As a government, we have no negative attitude toward the Israeli government. Otherwise anyone can say anything about each series that we air. These series are fiction. Of course there is a part of the truth in them, or they can be exaggerated a little bit, but ultimately they are a TV series." PRESS MEMBERS (SOUNDBITE) (Turkish) TURKISH STATE MINISTER RESPONSIBLE FOR TURKISH RADIO TELEVISION, BULENT ARINC, SAYING "If we do something wrong, and if we spot that Turkey's national benefit will be damaged then as a government, or TRT, we can take action. But as a government we have no intervention over the series."
  • Embargoed: 31st October 2009 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Turkey
  • Country: Turkey
  • Topics: International Relations
  • Reuters ID: LVAYCR91KOGU9JZHAHUDVIBKYCI
  • Story Text: Bulent Arinc, the Turkish Minister of State responsible for state-run Turkish Radio Television (TRT), said on Thursday (October 15) that his government has no negative attitude toward Israel following controversy over a new TV series.
    Arinc, who attended the party held for the new season of TRT, said that the TV series "Separation", that led to a crisis between Turkey and Israel should be viewed as fiction.
    "As a government, we have no negative attitude toward the Israeli government. Otherwise anyone can say anything about each series that we air. These series are fiction. Of course there is a part of the truth in them, or they can be exaggerated a little bit, but ultimately they are a TV series," said Arinc.
    The Minister for State said that there will be no cancellation of the TV drama.
    "If we do something wrong, and if we spot that Turkey's national benefit will be damaged then as a government, or TRT, we can take action. But as a government we have no intervention over the series," said Arinc.
    The Turkish television drama which depicts an Israeli soldier shooting dead a Palestinian baby has strained already tense relations between Israel and Turkey, its strategic Muslim ally.
    Once-close ties between the Jewish state and Turkey, a secular state with a Muslim population, have deteriorated since Israel's offensive earlier this year in the Palestinian Gaza Strip.
    Israel on Thursday summoned a Turkish diplomat to protest at "state-sponsored incitement" by state-owned TRT television's "Separation" series, in which actors playing Israeli soldiers and Palestinians fight street battles in Jerusalem.
    "The series, which has no connection to reality whatsoever, is not even suitable for an enemy country and certainly not for a country that has full diplomatic relations with Israel," Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said in a statement.
    One scene, broadcast on Israel's Channel Two television on Wednesday (October 14), shows a Palestinian father holding a baby above his head and an Israeli soldier deliberately shooting the infant.
    "It of course raises the question of the direction of Turkish diplomacy," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday of the tensions. "We hope it is in the direction of strengthening peace and not the extremist forces."
    Turkey has recently strengthened relations with neighbouring Syria, where much of the Hamas leadership is based.
    Israel's three-week offensive in the Gaza Strip in December and January killed 1,417 Palestinians, including 926 civilians, a a Palestinian rights group says. Israel has said 709 Palestinian combatants were killed along with 295 civilians and 162 people whose status it was unable to clarify.
    Ten Israeli soldiers and three civilians were killed during the campaign, which Israel launched with the declared aim of ending cross-border rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip.
    During a meeting with the Turkish embassy charge d'affairs, a Foreign Ministry official said Israel "cannot stand by when such blatant incitement is being broadcast against Israel and (Israeli) soldiers", a statement issued by the ministry said.
    The official also said the portrayal of Israeli soldiers as "a master race eager to murder children" could endanger Israeli and Jewish tourists who visit Turkey.
    The show's producer, Selcuk Cobanoglu, told Reuters: "If the Israeli government is disturbed with this, it means they are disturbed with the reality when we go there and eyewitness what is happening there."
    Turkey barred Israel from participating in a NATO war exercise this week and Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said the move was a result of public concerns over the Israeli military campaign in the Gaza Strip.
    The drill was postponed indefinitely after other nations, including the United States and Italy, refused to take part without Israel's air force.
    In January Erdogan, head of the Islamist-rooted AK Party, stormed out of a debate with Israeli President Shimon Peres at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland in protest at the Gaza offensive.
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