Erdogan wants to visit Gaza, Hamas relations good

While relations between Turkey and Israel remain tense ever since an assault in 2010 by Israeli special forces of the Mavi Marmara ship carrying pro-Palestinian activists in which nine Turkish citizens died, Turkish Premier Recep Tayyip Erdogan has announced the intention of visiting Gaza, the Turkish press reports. Erdogan told reporters that he means to visit 'soon' the Palestinian territories controlled by Hamas and that he charged Ankara diplomats with establishing contacts with Gaza authorities, Zaman reports. The Turkish premier has good relations with the Palestinian radical movement close to the Muslim Brotherhood whose leader Khaled Mashaal was warmly applauded in Ankara at the recent congress of Erdogan's AKP party. Erdogan told journalists that he spoke with Angela Merkel in Berlin of the current difficult relations between Ankara and Jerusalem and that the German chancellor expressed the hope for a detente. The Turkish premier stressed the conditions outlined by Turkey for a resumption of relations with the Jewish state: the payment of compensation to the families of victims of the Mavi Marmara, Israel's public apologies and the end of the Gaza embargo.