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Iraq Slams "Provocative" Israel-Turkey-U.S. Naval Exercises
BAGHDAD (News Agencies) - Iraq denounced as a "provocation" the joint sea exercises launched by the Israeli, Turkish and U.S. navies in the eastern Mediterranean on Wednesday, the 10th anniversary of the Gulf War.
"The forces of evil and aggression are persisting in their policy of provocation" against the Arab world, a foreign ministry spokesman charged, quoted by the official news agency INA.
Condemning "the suspect plots of the United States and Zionism to impose their hegemony on the region," the spokesman said, "it is not by chance that these maneuvers coincide with the 10th anniversary of the aggression against Iraq."
He voiced "surprise that Turkey, a Muslim country, should coordinate with the racist Zionist entity, which is massacring the Palestinians and repressing their Intifada," or uprising, against Israeli rule.
The one-day maneuvers were being held in international waters off Israel, an Israeli spokesman said. It was an operation aimed at rescuing civilian ships, not a war exercise.
Similar maneuvers were held in January 1998 and December 1999, drawing the ire of several Arab countries.
Israel and Turkey signed a military cooperation agreement in February 1996. The majority of Arab countries and Iran denounced it as a threat directed against them.
In support of the Palestinians, Iraqi President Saddam threatened to bombard Israel every day for six months, newspapers in Baghdad reported on the anniversary of the war over Kuwait.
"Could Israel resist uninterrupted artillery shelling for six months?" Saddam asked. Baghdad alone could carry out the barrage, "even if the Arabs just encourage Iraq saying, 'We support you'".
In Israel, a senior official at the defense ministry said: "I do not want to react to that."
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