WASHINGTON
Philip Gordon, assistant secretary for Bureau of Europe and Eurasia of U.S. State Department, has said, "we don't accept that countries should bring any bilateral dispute into the alliance."
Gordon answered senator's questions at a session titled "NATO: Chicago and Beyond" on Thursday.
When Utah Senator Mike Lee asked Gordon if he anticipated that over the next 10 days they might have seen any softening of Turkey's objection to Israel's participation in the upcoming summit?" Gordon said, "NATO had not envisaged inviting Israel to the Chicago summit. Israel is an important partner of NATO, certainly an important ally of the United States. It is a member of the Mediterranean dialogue, one of NATO's manifold partnership arrangements. So there was no meeting of the Mediterranean dialogue or a particular invitation to Israel for Turkey to block."
Philip Gordon said, "Turkey-Israel relations aren't very well. We are very clear that no country should bring bilateral disputes into the alliance."
