'IHH to delay next flotilla until after Turkey elections'

Turkish Islamic organization will reportedly wait to see if Erdogan is re-elected until it sends 'Mavi Marmara' aid ship back to Gaza.

By JPOST.COM STAFF
mavi marmara weapons 311 (photo credit: IDF)
mavi marmara weapons 311
(photo credit: IDF)
The Turkish IHH organization has said that it will delay its participation in the upcoming flotilla to Gaza scheduled for June until after elections in Turkey, Israel Radio reported Tuesday.
According to the report, the group will wait to see if Turkey's Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan will be reelected during the June elections before it decides to send the Mavi Marmara ship back to the Gaza Strip.
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A Turkish representative from the organization told Israel Radio that the decision was not made as a result of international pressure.
"The flotilla will eventually set out on its way," the representative said.
"This is not Israel's Mediterranean Sea," IHH President Bulent Yildrim said last week, according to Turkish newspaper Zaman. "We are not afraid to become martyrs."
At the beginning in of April, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu spoke on with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, asking him to work toward stopping the planned flotilla.
Netanyahu told Ban that the flotilla was being organized partly by radical Islamists, whose aim is to provoke and cause violence.