BICOM

The Italian daily, Corriere della Sera, reported yesterday that May’s Istanbul bombing, that exploded near a market and injured six, was an attempt by Hezbollah and Iran to assassinate Israel’s consul general to Istanbul. The explosion had been preceded by unusual warnings by Israeli intelligence, which referred to specific countries, including Turkey, Greece, Malta and Cyprus.

The Italian newspaper based its story on “Middle Eastern sources” and reported that the target of the attack was Moshe Kimchi, Israel’s consul to Istanbul. The attempt on Kimchi, the report says, failed because of the security measures protecting the Israeli diplomat and the local security detail. According to the report, on the day of the attack, Kimchi’s car drove deliberately slower than usual and he was uninjured.

To date no group has claimed responsibility for the attack. Until now the predominant assumption in Turkey was that it was the work of members of the Kurdish resistance group, the PKK, and was intended to affect the upcoming Turkish elections. Although the report is unconfirmed, and Ankara in the Italian daily denies the feature, both Hezbollah and Iran are suspected to be seeking revenge against Israel; Hezbollah for the death of their leader, Imad Mughaniyah, who was killed in Damascus in 2008, and Iran for the death of two nuclear physicists in Tehran in 2009 and 2010. Israel has not claimed responsibility for any of the deaths. 

In a separate development, Haaretz reports that during US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s visit to Istanbul last weekend, she relayed a message to Turkish President Abdullah Gul stressing the Obama administrations emphasis on resolving Israel-Turkey relations. The stumbling block remains Ankara’s insistence that Israel apologises for the death of the nine Turkish citizens on board last year’s flotilla and pays compensation to their families. Israel has so far refused to apologise for the incident, which it blames on IHH activists who were backed by the Turkish government. Both sides in New York, ahead of a UN committee’s report investigating the flotilla incident, are thought to be trying to find a formula that would satisfy Turkey but did not burden Jerusalem with full responsibility.