A Turkish newspaper reported on Wednesday that Turkey would stop military ties with Israel and would not send back an envoy, withdrawn after an Israeli deadly raid into Turkish aid convoy aimed to break siege on Gaza.

Turkey's President Abdullah Gul said Tuesday that Turkey had a road map for relations with Israel, however he added that it could only be made public by the government.

Turkey had said would reduce economic and defence ties with Israel just after the killings.

The Star newspaper's report of decisions taken at a cabinet meeting this week was based on unnamed sources. An aide to Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan declined to comment on the report.

The newspaper said the Turkish government had decided against sending back its ambassador to Tel Aviv unless Israel provides a member for a U.N. investigation into the killings on the international waters.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has proposed a full international inquiry, but Israel refused the international panel, only says it is conducting its own local investigation.
However, Turkey demands international role on any probe.

"We took a series of decisions covering military, diplomatic and political pressure and measures," The Star quoted the sources as saying.

It also reported that military deals, including plane and tank modernisation and missile projects and which the paper said were worth $7.5 billion, were to be frozen.

Military cooperation, including joint exercises and pilot training, would also be halted, as would intelligence sharing, the Star said.

It said the sanctions against Israel would be introduced gradually.

The 31 May attack in which Israel raided a six-ship convoy in international waters that was carrying humanitarian goods and activists and heading for Gaza killed nine Turkish civilians, wounding at least 30 others.

This week, Turkey's Foreign Minister dismissed internal Israeli probe over deadly Gaza ship attack, saying "The fact that a defendant is both prosecutor and judge, constitutes contradiction to law."

Davutoglu said an international participation in commission that will be established by Israel would not be an international one.

Turkey has withdrawn its ambassador, cancelled joint military exercises, and called for Israel to end its blockade of 1.5 million Palestinians.

There has been widespread public outrage in Turkey over Israel's murders of citizens.


Agencies