The White House is dispatching Secretary of State John Kerry to “smooth things over” between Israel and Turkey, after statements and threats made by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan raised “worries that the Obama administration’s newly brokered friendship between [the two countries] risks unraveling.”

The administration is concerned about Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s plans to visit the Hamas-controlled Gaza strip, a move certain to raise tensions in the volatile region. Erdoğan’s announcement risks undermining the major diplomatic coup the White House claimed last month when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Erdoğan to apologize for a 2010 Israeli raid that killed eight Turks and one Turkish-American on a Gaza-bound flotilla.

Erdogan had for years set absolute conditions for restoring ties with Israel, which Ankara broke off in the aftermath of Israel’s 2010 interception of a Turkish vessel that was trying to breach the Jewish state’s blockade of the Gaza Strip. Israeli commandos who intercepted the ship were attacked by its passengers, and nine died in the ensuing fighting. Erdogan had rejected Israeli offers for reconciliation until last week when he was maneuvered into accepting terms that fell far short of his conditions. He has since engaged in what the Washington Post criticized as “undiplomatic[] crowing,” implying that he humiliated Israel, and has announced that he intends to visit Gaza to “monitor” Israeli compliance with reconciliation terms.

The State Department has repeatedly expressed its opposition to the trip, which would be seen as a diplomatic victory for the Iran-backed terror group Hamas.

[Photo: Department of State / Wiki Commons]