In a remarkable 24 hours, it has emerged that Turkey has ended a six-year diplomatic break with Israel and apologized to Moscow for shooting down a Russian jet last November. Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildrim has painted the rapprochement with Israel as a victory after the 2010 Israeli attack on the Mavi Marmara aid convoy to Gaza, which saw the murder of ten Turks, including one who also held US citizenship. The victory is that Turkey is to be allowed to send further aid to the Palestinians but via the Israeli port of Ashdod. The Israelis will also allow the Turks to invest in Gaza building projects and will pay $20 million compensation for the Mavi Marama killings. In return Ankara has promised to drop any further legal actions or enquiries over the murderous assault on the unarmed aid convoy. It has also agreed to clamp down on Hamas in Turkey. Not content with this face-saving accommodation with the hawkish Netanyahu government, in an uncharacteristic about-face, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been prepared to eat humble pie and apologize for the downing of the Russian fighter, which at the time, Ankara claimed to have been violating Turkish airspace. But Erdogan sent his "deep sympathy and condolences" in a private letter to Putin which the Kremlin has now chosen to release. The pilot of the Sukhoi jet was killed as was a marine in the helicopter party sent to rescue him. According to Moscow the Turkish president's words had none of the angry bluster of last November. Instead, he wrote that Russia is a friend of Turkey and a strategic partner. Ankara did not wish to spoil relations with Moscow. If this was indeed the message that was sent, there must have a smile on Putin's lips when he read it. To all intents and purposes, it appears to be a admission by the Turkish president that his original furious response was wrong. As a result of the November incident, Moscow imposed a range of sanctions, banning Turkish goods and stopping Russians from holidaying in Turkish resorts, already denuded of European holidaymakers as a result of terror attacks, including a suicide bombing in Istanbul's historic Sultanahmet district which killed ten tourists. Turkish construction companies operating in Russia suddenly found themselves in breach of a series of regulations and payments began to be delayed. Putin said by destroying the warplane, Turkey had stabbed Russia in the back. He also released intelligence which claimed to show that the Turkish authorities had been helping Daesh (the self-proclaimed IS) terrorists move through the country to Syria. The Russian response seemed to shake Erdogan, who sought to row back and calm the crisis. He offered to fly to Moscow for a face-to-face meeting with Putin. This was an ill-judged suggestion because there was never any indication from the Kremlin that such a trip would be welcomed. Instead, predictably, Putin refused any such encounter, leaving Erdogan wrong-footed. The sanctions would only be lifted, he said, once there had been an apology. But it may not prove this simple. Putin, the loyal ally of the bloody Basher Assad, may be tempted to further humiliate Erdogan or seek secret conditions that will undermine Turkey's position in the alliance against the Damascus regime.
