In her new book, Hillary Clinton writes that Turkey's foreign minister told her that his country "might declare war on Israel" following Jerusalem's 2010 attack on a flotilla carrying aid to Gaza, in which nine Turks and one Turkish-American were killed, Today's Zaman reports.

"He was highly emotional and threatened that Turkey might declare war on Israel," the former U.S. secretary of state writes, referring to Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, in her memoir "Hard Choices," released Tuesday.

Psychologically, this attack is like 9/11 for Turkey, Davutoglu told her in a two-hour talk after the May 31, 2010 incident, Clinton writes. She adds that Davutoglu noted that an American citizen was killed in the raid and asked her, How can you not care?

Israeli naval commandos raided the Mavi Marmara, which was leading a flotilla to bring aid to the blockaded Gaza Strip. At one point, unarmed commandos rappelled onto the deck and were attacked by a crowd of activists wielding clubs. Armed commandos then boarded the ship and killed 10 activists.

The incident led Turkey to effectively break relations with Israel. Clinton writes that she tried to convince Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to apologize to Turkey, which he did last year. Since then, the two countries have been in negotiations to award Israeli compensation to the families of the victims. The success of the talks and payment of compensation would likely lead to the resumption of normal relations between the two countries.



Open gallery view Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu. Credit: AP