Azerbaijan, Baku, June 4 / Trend, U.Sadikhova /
Turkey should take more strict steps towards Israel in particular in the field of economic and military cooperation between the countries, Turkish MP Onur Oymen told Trend.
"Turkey has a lot of pressure leverages on Israel, that should be used in the near future," Onur Oymen, MP, chairman of the committee on foreign affairs of the Republican People's Party told Trend over phone.
Relations between Turkey and Israel worsened after the Israeli Navy's attacks on the "Flotilla of Freedom" carrying the humanitarian aid to Gaza May 31. As a result of the attack nine people, including eight Turkish citizens were killed, 19 were injured, several people missed.
June 2, the Turkish parliament demanded the Government to review relations with Israel.
According Oymen, first Turkey should stop purchasing weapons from Israel, thereby weakening the military cooperation between the countries existing over ten years.
"Turkey must refuse not only the planned agreements, but also existing agreements for military cooperation. However, this does not mean that Ankara should use military force against Israel" Oymen said.
Oymen also considers it necessary to strengthen the economic pressure on Israel.
"Ankara should exclude Israel from the large regional economic projects," Oymen said.
On Wednesday, the Turkish newspaper Aksam reported that Ankara considers various variants of economic sanctions against Israel, including the possibility of its exclusion from the gas project "Blue Stream-2" in case of further deterioration of relations between the two countries.
In March 2009, Russia and Turkey agreed to establish a working group on the project "Blue Stream 2", which will supply the Russian natural gas to the Middle East, Israel and other countries.
The project, in particular, envisages construction of a new thread in parallel with the existing Trans Black Sea gas pipeline "Blue Stream", via which the Russian gas is supplied to Turkey.
According to the Aksam newspaper, which quoted diplomatic sources within possible responses in Ankara, review of international projects being implemented with Israel is under discussion. One of them is "Blue Stream-2", the newspaper agazine reports.
R.Hafizoglu contributed to the article.