US, Israel 'biggest threats to Turkey'

Wed Jan 5, 2011

Nearly most people in Turkey see the United States and Israel as the biggest threats to their country, a recent opinion poll has revealed.

According to a survey conducted in December by the Ankara-based Metropoll research company, 42.6 percent of the respondents consider the US as "the greatest external threat," while another 23.7 percent describe Israel as a major cause for concern.

"The US foreign politics since the Iraqi invasion, the hood incident [the US detention of Turkish soldiers during the Iraq war], the war in Afghanistan, repeated Armenian bills in US Congress and the negative statements that Turkish leaders make about the US and Israel play a major role in this perception," Professor Ozer Sencar, chairman of Metropoll Research Center, told Turkey's Hurriyet on Wednesday.

"It is interesting that Turkish people perceive an ally, the US, a country with whom Turkey has high-level, bilateral relations and is in NATO, as a threat", Sencar said, adding that Turkish people had not perceived the US as a threat before the US-led invasion of Iraq.

He also cited Washington's strong support for Israel's brutalities against the Palestinian people as another source of the negative perception.

"Israeli politics in the region and the suffering of Palestinians are not opposed -- let alone reacted to -- by the US administration", Sencar said.

The poll, which was conducted on some 1,500 people across Turkey, also showed that nearly 64 percent of Turks believe that Ankara should freeze relations with Israel.

The survey also made it clear that Turkish hostility toward Israel was on the rise.

Ankara-Tel Aviv's once strong relations turned sour last year after Israeli forces killed nine Turkish activists onboard an aid ship, which was carrying humanitarian supplies to the besieged Gaza Strip in May.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail/158826.html.