The United States hopes to "de-escalate" rising tensions between Turkey and Israel over the killing last year of nine Turkish activists aboard a Gaza-bound ship, a US official said Tuesday according to dpa. US State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said the US wants "both of these strong allies of the United States to get back to a place where they have a good working relationship with each other." Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday declared additional retaliatory measures against Israel after ejecting Israel's ambassador and cutting military ties. He released a report stating that trade and military relations between the two nations would be frozen. Nuland said the US was "concerned about the state of the relationship today" and wanted to avoid future confrontations. US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton met recently in Paris with Turkey's Foreign Minister Ahmed Davutoglu in Paris, and US emissaries have been meeting with Israel on the issue, Nuland noted.
