Sputnik: How much of a role do relations between Israel and Turkey play in this sale?
Edy Cohen: I think now it’s the Israelis. We have not heard an official response yet about this purchase. We didn’t hear anything from the Israelis but I hope that Jewish in the US, the Israeli lobby AIPAC put pressure on the US, on the Congress and not let the Turkish have these kinds of planes.
Sputnik: Do you think Turkey is ready to make concessions to the US, namely release the American pastor from detention?
Edy Cohen: Well Turkey is ready to make concessions whenever it needs, whenever there is a situation, whenever it wants money from the Europeans so they keep the immigrants locked in.
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Turkey is playing a dirty role in the Middle East. So I think it’s ready to make concessions to the US in order to have this purchase.
Sputnik: If we look at US-Turkish relations at the moment, how would you characterize them and where do you think they are heading in the future?
Edy Cohen: Well unfortunately not only the Israeli government, but also the Israeli people don’t want to travel to Turkey now. They will travel to Greece, to Cyprus, to Europe. Israeli people, and me myself one of them, I will not fly to Turkey because I am afraid. We are all afraid to be in Turkey. We always hear anti-Israel and anti-Semitic remarks from President Erdogan.
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Erdogan tried to defend terrorists and Gaza and meanwhile he kills civilians on the Syrian border.
Last year in 2017, 61 Syrian refugees were killed by the Turkish gendarmerie just because they came to the Turkish frontier. So we kill terrorists in Gaza that try to enter Israel to kill Jewish people, but the Turkish gendarmerie killed 61 refugees just because they came to the frontier.
So the relations are very bad and I am very, very pessimistic about this.
The views and opinions expressed by Edy Cohen are those of the speaker and do not necessarily reflect those of Sputnik.
