By Today's Zaman
April 1, 2011

Officials confirmed on Thursday that Israeli President Shimon Peres has been invited to a UN conference to be held in Turkey next month, but underlined that the invitation has been extended by the UN, not the Turkish administration.

“Invitations have been extended to all members of the UN, so this includes Israel too,” diplomatic sources told Today’s Zaman. “Even the accreditation of the press for the summit is being handled by the UN headquarters in New York, as are the invitations. It is not right to say that Peres has been invited by President Abdullah Gül,” the same sources, speaking under condition of anonymity, noted, in an apparent reference to reports by Israeli media about the invitation.

Turkey will host the fourth United Nations Conference on the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) on May 9-13 in İstanbul, one in a series of conferences to help poorer nations improve prosperity and infrastructure.

Gül invited Peres to the conference, reported an English-language Israeli website, The Jerusalem Post, late on Wednesday, while Israel Radio repeated the same report on Thursday.

The Jerusalem Post, however, also cited anonymous sources saying that the invitation “was likely less about trying to break the ice between the two countries, and more about the obligation of countries hosting a UN conference to invite all member states to attend.”

Relations between Turkey and Israel began to deteriorate after Israeli forces killed about 1,400 Palestinians in a three-week offensive in Gaza in the winter of 2009-2010.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan walked out of a World Economic Forum session in Davos, Switzerland, in late January 2009 after an angry exchange with Peres over the Gaza operation.

“The President’s Office said that the matter was being looked into, and that Peres was considering the invitation,” The Jerusalem Post said, noting that the Turkish parliament speaker also invited Knesset speaker Reuven Rivlin to the conference as well.

Tension between Turkey and Israel reached a peak when Israeli commandos killed nine activists -- eight Turks and one Turkish-American, during a raid on an aid flotilla trying to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza, in May 31, 2010. Following Israel’s May 31 attack in international waters, Ankara has made clear relations must be normalized via a fulfillment of Turkey’s conditions on Israel before allowing any high-level visits between the two countries.

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