Israel, Turkey: No air maneuvers

Ankara and Tel Aviv on Wednesday night denied news reports about joint air maneuvers between the two countries' air forces said to be held on the sidelines of the visit of Israeli Prime Minister Mesout Yilmaz to Israel concluded on Wednesday.

The advisor at the Israeli embassy in Ankara Amir Meimoun stressed that such maneuvers were not decided, whereas spokesman for the Turkish Foreign Ministry Najati Otkan said he has no information about carrying out joint air maneuvers with Israel.

Meanwhile, Cairo has strongly criticized the Turkish - Israeli military cooperation. It added that it did not receive any invitation to participate in maneuvers between forces in the two countries.

Baghdad accused Yilmaz of seeking to market an Israeli security project in the region against the Arabs. Baghdad stated, "It seems that Turkey can not stand still for long before the Zionist-Israeli temptations."