The Turkish ship Mavi Marmara, which was part of an international flotilla that attempted to breach an Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip last year, will not take part in this year's trip, a charity that owns the ship said on Friday, June 17.
According to Today’s Zaman, Bülent Yıldırım, who heads the Turkish Humanitarian Aid Foundation (İHH), said the Mavi Marmara will not be able to make the trip to Gaza for technical reasons.
Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu, who earlier said the government would not interfere with a civilian initiative, said this month that the organizers should wait to see how an Egyptian decision to lift the blockade of Gaza and a Palestinian reconciliation deal will affect the situation in Gaza. Yıldırım, speaking at a press conference in İstanbul, said the İHH decision not to send the Mavi Marmara to Gaza had nothing to do with the government, emphasizing that it is a purely technical decision. “There is absolutely no obstruction by the government,” he said.
Despite the Mavi Marmara's absence, the İHH will still be a part of the international group that organized the Gaza mission, Yıldırım also said. However, an İHH spokesman had signaled this week that the group might cancel plans to travel to Gaza given new developments in the region, particularly the crisis in neighboring Syria.
