Anti-Israel remarks test John Kerry's diplomacy in Turkey

Secretary of State John Kerry traveled to Turkey to stress points of agreement with the ally. Now, he's putting out fires after the prime minister made comments maligning Israel.

Secretary of State John Kerry leans over to clasp Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu's hand at the end of a news conference at Ankara Palace in Ankara, Turkey, on Friday. Ankara is the fifth leg of Kerry's first official overseas trip, a nine-day dash through Europe and the Middle East.
(Jacquelyn Martin/AP)

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By Howard LaFranchi, 

WASHINGTON

Secretary of State John Kerry is no stranger to prickly diplomatic situations – he smoothed ruffled feathers in Afghanistan and Pakistan in recent years as President Obama’s troubleshooting envoy to those two problematic partners.

But his skills got a particularly tricky testing in Turkey Friday, where Secretary Kerry arrived for talks two days after Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan called Zionism a “crime against humanity” as grave as anti-Semitism or Islamophopia.

And to think one of Kerry’s purposes in making a stop in Turkey on his first overseas trip as secretary of State was to encourage the NATO ally to repair its frayed relations with Israel.

Instead, Kerry found himself admonishing the Turkish leader for what he said the US considered an “objectionable” comment. Indeed, the White House on Friday issued a statement rejecting Mr. Erdogan’s equation of Zionism with other crimes against humanity as “offensive and wrong.”

Speaking Wednesday at a United Nations conference in Vienna meant to encourage dialogue between the West and Islam, Erdogan said, “It is necessary that we must consider – just like Zionism, or anti-Semitism, or fascism – Islamophobia as a crime against humanity.”

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called the comments “hurtful” and “divisive.”

Turkey and Israel were once good friends, even holding joint military exercises. US leaders cited Turkey as an example of a Muslim country building a mutually advantageous relationship with the Jewish state. But that ended in 2010, when Israel responded to a flotilla of protesters out to break Israel’s blockade of Gaza by opening fire, killing nine Turks.

Israel insisted it was acting in self-defense and has never apologized for the deadly attack, infuriating Erdogan. He has issued occasional rhetorical broadsides against Israel ever since. Last November he accused Israel of “state terrorism” and “ethnic-cleansing” in its treatment of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.

State Department officials traveling with Kerry said the comment was doubly unfortunate because it sent a tense ripple through a visit that otherwise was focused on topics where the US and Turkey have been working closely together: Syria, Iran, Egypt, counterterrorism.

“We have regretted for some time that Turkey and Israel, which are both strong friends and partners of the United States and once cooperated extensively with each other in terms of trade and tourism and even military and strategic cooperation – that that cooperation has broken down,” one senior State Department official said on condition of not being cited by name. “We’ll continue to urge Turkey and continue to urge both countries to do what they can and normalize that important relationship.”

At a news conference in Ankara, Turkey, with Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu before meeting Erdogan, Kerry said he raised the comment “very directly” with his counterpart, stressing the “urgent need to promote a spirit of tolerance, and that includes all of the public statements made by all leaders.”

Mr. Davutoglu made no mention of Erdogan’s remarks, preferring instead to upbraid Israel over its actions. “If Israel wants to hear positive statements from Turkey, it needs to review its attitude,” he said. “It needs to review its attitude toward us, and it needs to review its attitude toward the people in the region and especially the West Bank settlements issue.”

While hardly music to Kerry’s ears, those words allowed the top US diplomat the opportunity to sound – diplomatic. Asked to respond to his counterpart’s uncompromising remark, Kerry said, “It underscores the importance of our efforts to try to find a way forward to make peace in this region and to resolve the kind of differences that excite the passions that the foreign minister has just articulated and the difference of opinions about words and about their impact.”

Kerry said he was still hopeful that Turkey and Israel could find a way to restore their previously cooperative relations, something he said would be an asset to the effort to forge Middle East peace.

source: http://www.csmonitor.com/layout/set/print/USA/Foreign-Policy/2013/0301/Anti-Israel-remarks-test-John-Kerry-s-diplomacy-in-Turkey

Cardinal Ravasi: 'the most interesting man in the church'

Cardinal Ravasi: 'the most interesting man in the church'

Ravasi's profiled as a figure to watch: "Stay thirsty, my friends!"

"Openly campaigning for the papacy? Italian Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi?"

Openly campaigning for the papacy is not only taboo, it's usually fatal. Most cardinals are of the belief that if someone actually wants the job, they have no idea what it's about, writes John Allen inNCR Online.

On the other hand, sometimes circumstances align to thrust someone into the spotlight, creating an opportunity to either boost or diminish his electoral prospects, even if that's not officially the purpose of what's going on.

Today one such papabile steps onto the stage in Italian Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, a 70-year-old biblical scholar, essayist and intellectual omnivore.

From Sunday evening to Saturday morning, Ravasi will preach the Lenten spiritual exercises for the Roman Curia, an annual retreat during which the Vatican more or less goes into lockdown while its personnel gather in the Redemptoris Mater chapel in the Apostolic Palace.

Ravasi is the son of an anti-fascist tax official who was lost to the young Ravasi for 18 months after deserting the army during World War II. In a typically reflective flourish, Ravasi later said his lifelong search for permanence is probably related to that early sense of loss.

While working on his doctorate at the Pontifical Biblical Institute, Ravasi spent time in Turkey, Iraq, Syria and Jordan on archeological digs, and later served as prefect of the prestigious Ambrosian Library in Milan.

Among those who know Ravasi, his penchant for literary allusion is legendary; rarely can he talk for more than five minutes without citing wildly diverse sources such as St. Augustine, Isaac Newton, Vladimir Nabakov and the Russian Orthodox liturgy.

Despite his prodigious learning, Ravasi has a strong popular touch. On Friday night in Rome, he delivered some reflections on Albert Camus at the Jesuit-run Church of Gesù, which struggled to contain an overflow crowd.

FULL STORY 'The most interesting man in the church' (NCR)