Carney speaks on Turkey-Israeli relations

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said in a press briefing yesterday that President Barack Obama had a good relationship with his counterpart in Turkey. “The fundamental issue here is the need to resolve the dispute between the Palestinians and the Israelis, which goes back to our view that both sides need to return to direct negotiations, and that a two-state solution and a long-term peace can only be achieved through direct negotiations,” said Carney. The Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth wrote that the US was concerned by recent crisis and that Defense Minister Ehud Barak met with three top officials from the US on Tuesday, namely, Obama’s Advisor Dennis Ross, US Ambassador to Israel Daniel Shapiro and Special Envoy for Middle East David Hale and discussed relationships between Israel and Turkey and some other issues during the one-hour meeting. Furthermore, speaking at a conference in Tel Aviv, Israeli main opposition leader Tzipi Livni said that Turkey has now realized that the US considers Israel not as a value, but as a burden and claimed that Turkey picked up the scene of weakness and loneliness suffered by Israel and wanted to take advantage of it.