Israel to recall police envoy to Turkey

Israel has decided to end its police cooperation with Turkey, transferring the police attaché stationed in Ankara to Romania, an official with the Ministry of Public Security told AFP on Monday.

Ministry Spokesman Tal Volovitch said that Internal Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch has decided to transfer Israel's Ankara-based homeland security representative to Bucharest.

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Volovitch noted that the decision stemmed from the deteriorating bilateral relations between the two countries.

The spokesman added that "The Israel Police continues to maintain missions in many other countries, particularly to coordinate the war on drugs and criminal activity."

The move is yet another blow to Israel and Turkey's strained relations, which hit an all time low in early September, when Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan ordered the downgrading of diplomatic ties between the once-close strategic allies, to second-secretary level, in wake of the UN's Palmer Report.

Erdogan expelled the Israeli ambassador to Ankara and with him all lower Israeli diplomatic personnel above the second-secretary level.

Since then, the Turkish prime minister's rhetoric has taken a belligerent tone, threatening that Ankara's warships could deploy in east Mediterranean waters at a moment's notice, and outfitting Turkish warplanes with radar systems that identify Israeli targets as "hostile."

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