Turkey announces it would rescue, if necessary, the flotilla heading to Gaza

The Turkish Navy will contribute, if necessary, to the rescue operations related to the Sumud Flotilla heading to the Gaza Strip, the Turkish Ministry of Defense announced on Tuesday, although without explicitly naming that initiative.

“Turkey is closely monitoring how humanitarian aid activities are safely carried out by civilian ships currently sailing in the Eastern Mediterranean within the framework of humanitarian values and international law,” states a Defense statement.

“In this context, our ships, which perform various training tasks and routine activities in the region, will contribute, if necessary, with their search and rescue capacity to humanitarian aid tasks, in coordination with our institutions and international interlocutors,” he adds.

The Ministry concludes that Turkey “will assume its responsibility to protect human values and the safety of innocent civilians everywhere and under any condition.”

Spokespersons for the Flotilla confirmed yesterday Turkey’s assistance to one of its ships, the Johnny M., which had suffered an engine breakdown, with most of its crew being distributed to other vessels.

Four passengers from this ship returned to land aboard a Turkish military vessel, assured a Turkish activist, participant in the Flotilla, in statements to the NTV channel.

A statement from the Flotilla was limited to thanking the support of “the Red Crescent, in coordination with the Turkish Government, for facilitating the safe return of the participants and for delivering additional humanitarian aid to the flotilla”.

For days, the Turkish press has been reporting on the presence of Turkish military drones near the Flotilla, which some media outlets interpret as Ankara’s “protection” of the initiative, although without official confirmation in this regard.

Currently, the bulk of the Flotilla, which has just been joined by two vessels from the Turkish coast, is located north of Alexandria (Egypt), about 370 kilometers from the coast of Gaza.