Nicaragua First Country to Suspend Ties with Israel over Aid Fleet Massacre

Nicaragua First Country to Suspend Ties with Israel over Aid Fleet Massacre

02/06/2010 Nicaragua suspended diplomatic relations with Israel on Tuesday, becoming the first country to do so in protest against a botched Israeli raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla.

"Nicaragua suspends from today its diplomatic relations with the government of Israel," President Daniel Ortega's communications chief and the country's first lady Rosario Murillo said in a statement read on Radio Ya.

Managua "underscored the illegal nature of the attack on a humanitarian mission in clear violation of international and humanitarian law," added Murillo, who doubles as a poetess and Nicaraguan first lady.
Nicaragua reiterated its support for the Palestinian people and urged an end to the blockade on the Gaza Strip.
The Latin American country broke off ties with Israel once before in 1979 when
Ortega first came to power at the head of the leftist Sandinista revolution. They were restored by his successor Violeta Chamorro after her election in 1990.
Tuesday's action brought Nicaragua in line with other leftist regimes in Latin America.

Venezuela and Bolivia broke off relations with Israel in 2009 in protest over an Israeli offensive in Gaza that killed and injured 5000 Palestinian civilians. Cuba severed ties in 1973.

Israeli navy commandos stormed the Freedom flotilla Monday at day, opening fire at activists and killing at least nine of them, most of whom are Turks.
The Israeli story claims that occupation soldiers came under attack when they raided the flotilla, in a bid to delude the international opinion and justify the killing of the unarmed civilians. However, the world denounced Israel’s massacre as a war crime, always reminding the Zionist state that it committed its heinous crime in international waters.

In a speech to parliament Tuesday, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan called on the international community to punish Israel for its "bloody massacre" and urged international sanctions against its "lawlessness."

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