Turkey-Israel Feature: As a New Flotilla Prepares to Sail, Ankara and West Jerusalem Endure the Chill (Slavin)

Turkey and Israel are close to resolving their dispute over last year's flotilla fiasco, but the partnership that existed between them for more than a decade will almost certainly stay submerged.

As a new flotilla of ships prepared to set sail for Gaza Tuesday, Turkish and Israeli officials and analysts said that only a major breakthrough on Israeli-Palestinian peace could begin to revive a relationship that once featured joint military exercises and hordes of Israeli tourists visiting Istanbul. Even then, the officials said, they doubted that the warmth of the 1990s and the mid-2000s would resurface.

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Iran Analysis: The Uproar over Former President Khatami's Call for "Reconciliation" (Farhi)

Amid intensified factional fighting among conservatives who dominate the presidency, the parliament, and the office of the Islamic Republic's Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, an appeal for national reconciliation and forgiveness by a former reformist president is making a major splash in Iran's political discourse.

The May 18 speech of Mohammad Khatami to a group of Iran-Iraq War veterans has taken friends and foes of the former president by surprise in a country where charges of electoral fraud and the regime's brutal suppression of post-election protests have completely polarised the population.

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Pakistan Analysis: Has Islamabad Stopped the US Offensive in Afghanistan? (Porter)

UPDATE 1400 GMT: Pakistan's Foreign Ministry has issued a statement, "After assessing the security situation in all its aspects, the government has decided to reopen the Nato/Isaf supply from the Pakistan-Afghanistan border at Torkham with immediate effect."

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Latest news from south-western Pakistan is that gunmen have set fire to nearly 30 tankers parked near a roadside restaurant near the town of Sibi.

By continuing its halt in NATO convoys headed for Afghanistan through the Torkham border crossing into a second week, Pakistan's military leadership has brought an end to the unilateral attacks in Pakistan pushed by Gen. David Petraeus and forced Washington to make a new accommodation.

And it may make it impossible for Petraeus to make the argument in the future that the United States can succeed in Afghanistan, given the refusal of Pakistan to budge on the issue. 

The halt in NATO convoys bound for Afghanistan and unhindered attacks on tanker trucks have continued despite a decision by the White House to direct U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan Anne Patterson and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen to apologise to the Pakistani government for the deaths of three Pakistani soldiers resulting from a U.S. helicopter raid from Afghanistan into Pakistan.

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