Israel bids to mend ties with Turkey

Israel's trade minister Monday began a visit to Turkey to mend strained relations, saying Ankara could help resolve the conflict between Israel and Syria.

"Turkey can help put things in place in the conflict between Israel and Syria," Benjamin Ben Eliezer, Israel's minister for trade and industry, said during a conference, according to the Anatolia news agency.

Ben Eliezer is the first Israeli cabinet member to visit Turkey since relations soured over Israel's offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip nearly a year ago.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said after meeting Ben Eliezer that Turkey was ready to help mediate between Israel and Syria, as it has done before, if asked.

"If we are assigned once more with such a mission, we are determined to be mediators again and to give all the support of which we are capable," Erdogan was quoted as saying by the Anatolia news agency.

In May 2008, Turkey mediated indirect talks between Israel and Syria -- mainly over Syria's claims to the Golan Heights which were seized and later annexed by Israel after the 1967 war -- but the talks broke down over the Gaza offensive.

But Erdogan also called on Israel to make a gesture on the Palestinian question, noting that in Gaza "the infrastructure is in ruins."

His comments appeared to contradict Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who last weekend said Turkey's attitude toward the Israeli government eliminated Ankara as a possible mediator.

Ben Eliezer, however, brushed aside the apparent conflict as a matter of opinion and said his talks were aimed at "continuing to reinforce and deepen our ties" with Turkey.

"I came here to deliver a message to the Turkish leaders, in the name of the Israeli prime minister, that we want to clear up the atmosphere that clouds" bilateral relations, he said.

In Ankara, Ben Eliezer held talks with Erdogan as well as with Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc and Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu.

Davutoglu told the Israeli minister that the situation in the Gaza Strip amounted to a humanitarian tragedy and that Turkey expects the situation there to improve, Anatolia reported.

He also bemoaned the lack of progress in peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians and Syria.