Turkey rejects Israel attending NATO summit

Turkey has reiterated its rejection to Israel's participation at the upcoming NATO summit, due to be held in Chicago on May 20th, as Israel has not given apologies to Turkey upon the Mavi Marmara -Gaza aid ship -attacks back in 2010 which claimed the lives of nine Turk peace activists. In response to a question whether Turkey was blocking Israel from participating at the NATO summit, a Turkish senior official today told reporters "We did not give our consent on that issue." Turkey's Hurriyet Daily News quoted the senior official as saying "There will be no Israeli presence at the NATO meeting unless they issue a formal apology and pay compensation for the Turkish citizens their commandos killed in international waters." He further said, however Israel's attendance might boost the process of positive dialogue with NATO members, "without sorting this issue out we deem it not appropriate for Israel to be around." Earlier on Monday, an Israeli official was quoted by the Times of Israel as saying "It is true that Israel wasn’t invited." He added "We didn’t plan on attending the summit anyway." Hurriyet Daily News reported that the level of diplomatic relations between Israel and Turkey has been reduced to the level of "second secretary" since the Mavi Marmara incident. It was reported that Turkey has dismissed the Israeli ambassador to Turkey last September as well as freezing all sorts of military cooperation with Israel after it rejected to apologize for the Mavi Marmara attacks. Media outlets in Turkey said today that some NATO allies sought Israel's participation at the summit in light of the NATO cooperation program that aims at strengthening ties with non-members states.