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Thursday, June 3, 2010

Turkey mourns dead Gaza activists

Turkey has captivated funerals for nine activists asleep in Israel's arrest on a Gaza aid fleet amidst affecting scenes.

The bodies were aureate from Israel to Istanbul, forth with added than 450 activists, to a heroes' welcome.

Israel has said there is no charge for an all-embracing analysis into the incident, insisting its own will accommodated the "highest all-embracing standards".

The UN Human Rights Council (HRC) voted beforehand to set up an investigation.

US President Barack Obama has declared the bearings as "tragic".

But in an account on CNN, to be aired later, he additionally says Israel does acquire "legitimate aegis concerns" in Gaza.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said his troops had no best but to stop the ships.

He argued the fleet had been aiming not to bear altruistic aid to Gazans, but to breach Israel's blockade.

It was Israel's assignment to anticipate rockets and added weapons actuality banned into Gaza to Hamas by Iran and others, he said.

Turkey, which has had almost balmy ties with Israel in contempo history, recalled its agent afterwards the adventure on Monday.

'Barbarism and oppression'

Its President, Abdullah Gul, said relations amid the two countries would "never be the same".

"This adventure has larboard an irreparable and abysmal scar" on relations, he told reporters in Ankara.

In a ablaze accent at Istanbul airport, Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc accused Israel of "piracy" and "barbarism and oppression".

Crowds of people, some cutting Palestinian-style scarves, aggregate in the burghal to accommodated the coffins, swathed in Turkish flags, at the Ottoman-era Fatih mosque.

The funerals took abode in a acerb Islamist allotment of the burghal and affections were active high, appear the BBC's Bethany Bell.

One of the bodies was due to be active in Istanbul while the added eight were actuality taken to their home towns, AFP account bureau reported.

Turkish post-mortem examinations begin all nine of the asleep had been shot, some at abutting range.

The asleep accommodate a 19-year-old Turkish aborigine with an American authorization - hit by four bullets in the arch and one in the chest - and a civic taekwondo athlete, Turkish media say.

The bodies arrived, forth with the 450 activists, in three aircraft accountant by the Turkish government at Istanbul airport in the aboriginal hours of Thursday, afterwards several hours of delays.

Mr Arinc said his government saluted the Turkish Islamic charity, the Foundation for Human Rights and Freedoms and Altruistic Relief (IHH), which played a arch role in organising the accompany - a alms Israel has accused of acknowledging terrorism.

IHH baton Bulent Yildrim said aloft his accession aback in Istanbul that he believed the afterlife assessment could be college than nine, as his organisation had a best account of missing people.

British activist Sarah Colbourne told the BBC: "I couldn't alike calculation the bulk of ships that were in the water. It was absolutely bristling with ships, helicopters and gunfire. It was horrific, absolutely horrific."

Swedish columnist Henning Mankell, who was aboard one of the ships in the flotilla, has absolved the abstraction that weapons were actuality agitated by the activists.

"On the address I was on, they begin one weapon: my razor. And they absolutely came up and showed it off, my razor, so you see what akin this was at," the columnist of the accepted Wallander detective novels told Swedish radio.

'Double standard'

Consular agents were on duke in Istanbul to advice the activists from added countries. They accommodate 34 bodies who authority British passports.

Doctors in Ankara, area some of the acutely afflicted were taken, say they acquire been alleviative bodies for ammo wounds. Three bodies are in accelerated care.

Seven added activists are in a austere action and will abide in Israeli hospitals until they can be moved, Israeli admiral say.

Another even accustomed 31 Greek activists, three French nationals and one American flew into Athens aboriginal on Thursday.

More than 100 ancestors and supporters animated and shouted pro-Palestinian slogans at the airport.

Rejecting the proposed HRC investigation, Israeli government agent Mark Regev said demands for an alien analysis showed a bifold accepted appear the Jewish state.

When American or British troops were accused of killing civilians in Iraq or Afghanistan, he said, it was the US or Britain that agitated out the investigation, not an all-embracing body.

Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman appropriate adhering all-embracing assemblage to an centralized Israeli inquiry.

"We acquire accomplished jurists... one of whom will be accommodating to booty it on himself, and if they appetite to accommodate an all-embracing affiliate of some array in their board that's alright too," he told Israel radio.

The US, Israel's best important ally, has already fabricated it bright it will acquire an Israeli-led inquiry, the BBC's Andrew North letters from Jerusalem.

New ship

Talk in Gaza is now axis to the abutting address on its way beyond the Mediterranean to try to breach the blockade, the BBC's Jon Donnison letters from the territory.

The Rachel Corrie - accustomed 15 bodies including Nobel Peace laureate Mairead Corrigan Maguire - had been due to be allotment of the aboriginal fleet but was delayed because of abstruse problems.

The address could be in the arena by Saturday, our contributor reports. Israel has said it will not be accustomed to berth in Gaza.

"Everybody was actual agitated at what happened [with the flotilla]," Irish aggregation affiliate Derek Graham told Reuters account bureau by telephone.

"Everybody has been added bent than anytime to abide on to Gaza."

Meanwhile, some of the 10,000 tonnes of aid bedeviled from the fleet by Israel has been alternate to the Israeli anchorage of Ashdod afterwards actuality larboard abandoned at a Gaza-Israel crossing.

The Hamas government in ascendancy of Gaza banned to acquire the aid until Israeli-Arab activists from the fleet were released.

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