Secret talks with Turkey backfire

JERUSALEM: Avigdor Lieberman, Israel's firebrand Foreign Minister, took to the airwaves in anger yesterday after learning secondhand of secret talks between Israeli and Turkish officials aimed at smoothing over a recent diplomatic row.

The clandestine talks between the Israeli Trade Minister, Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, and Turkey's Foreign Minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, appeared to achieve little but plunge Israel's Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, into a fresh domestic crisis after Lieberman learnt of the talks from Israeli television.

Lieberman said in a statement it was "extremely serious ... that this was done without notifying the Foreign Ministry".

Netanyahu's office said the failure to notify the Foreign Ministry was a "technical" oversight, but the row is likely to weaken further the Prime Minister's fragile right-wing coalition.

The rift appeared to be widening yesterday after Lieberman learned that United States President Barack Obama had instigated the secret talks and that Israeli Defence minister Ehud Barak also knew of them.

- Independent