Turkish Prime Minister says Israeli Premier's recent remarks about the Gaza war are inconsistent and create distrust among leaders.
At a joint press conference with his Croatian counterpart, Ivo Sanader, on Wednesday, Erdogan responded to his Israeli counterpart, Ehud Olmert, in an ongoing row over Israel's 23-day offensive against Gaza last month, saying he questioned the Israeli leader's trustworthiness.
"The comments made by Olmert are inconsistent. Which part of his remarks will you believe in," Erdogan told the joint press conference when asked about recent statement of the Israeli prime minister, according to Press TV correspondent in Turkey, Mehdi Gholizadeh.
In a Sunday speech, Olmert spoke of Erdogan's criticism that the Israeli leader did not tell his Turkish counterpart of a planned attack on Gaza during Olmert's visit to Ankara a few days before the offensive.
Olmert said he had not told Erdogan about the Gaza operation because he did not know that he would order an offensive in a few days, and because he could not be expected to inform any prime minister about Israel's military plans.
"One is that on Monday, I didn't know that we would attack on Saturday. How could I know? On Tuesday, Wednesday, they were shooting 50, 70 rockets and missiles a day against all our cities in the south, and we just decided that enough is enough and we have to respond," he said.
"But I also said, quite frankly, I didn't call the president of the United States, my good friend, George W. Bush, at that time, and say to him, 'I'm going to attack Gaza.' I didn't call my good friend, Gordon Brown or Nicolas Sarkozy or Angela Merkel."
"Why should I say to any prime minister what the military plans of the State of Israel are for defending its citizens? I don't think that it was the right thing to do. I don't think that I had to do it and I was quite unhappy with the feelings that were expressed by the Turkish prime minister," he told Sunday's conference.
Erdogan told the press conference that "First you will want a country to act as mediator. Then you come to this country and discuss the fifth round (of indirect talks between Israel and Syria). More interestingly, you say you did not know about it (the timing of the Gaza offensive) initially. Then you say 'why should I inform about it.'"
"These (statements) create distrust regarding the future. Leaders cannot create sense of distrust. Politics is not an institution that produces distrust," Hurriyet Daily News quoted Erdogan as saying.
Erdogan who has severely criticized Israel over its assault on Gaza says Israel should be barred from the UN.
Last month, Erdogan engaged in a public spat with Israel's President Shimon Peres during a meeting of the World Economic Forum over the Israeli massacre in the Gaza Strip.
Erdogan told Peres in the Forum that "When it comes to killing, you know very well how to kill." He also added that “I know very well how you hit and killed children on beaches."
He stormed out of the forum in Davos, Switzerland after a heated debate with Peres on Gaza complaining that his comments on the conflict were cut short by the Washington Post's moderator David Ignatius.
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