ANKARA. - U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stressed the necessity of restoring Turkey-Israel partnership and mending the Armenia-Turkey ties at the meeting with Turkish President Abdullah Gul.

The United States support the secret negotiations between Ankara and Tel Aviv and are ready to assist to achieve success.

“We are very sorry the relations between our two regional partners are tensed,” Clinton noted, Turkish Hurriyet newspaper reports.

In his turn, Gul once again insisted that Israel should apologize and compensate for their actions against the Turkish “Mavi Marmara” ship. 

“I promise in this case Israel’s extended hand will not remain in the air,” Gul emphasized.

Clinton once again focused attention on the necessity for Armenia-Turkey rapprochement, stressing Washington is ready to assist the two countries. Secretary of State also raised the issue on normalization of Armenian-Turkish relations at the meetings with the leaders of Turkish opposition.

As reported earlier, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is participating in the meeting of Contact Group on Libya in Istanbul.