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"THERE is no doubt he is our friend," Turkey's Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, says of Iran's President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, even as he accuses Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman of threatening to use nuclear weapons against Gaza.

These outrageous assertions point to the profound change of orientation by Turkey's government, for six decades the West's closest Muslim ally, since Mr Erdogan's AK party came to power in 2002.

The foreign ministers of Turkey and Syria met in Aleppo this month, and three recent events reveal the extent of the change. The first came on October 11 with the news that the Turkish military - a long-time bastion of secularism and advocate of co-operation with Israel - abruptly asked Israeli forces not to participate in the annual "Anatolian Eagle" air force exercise.

Mr Erdogan cited "diplomatic sensitivities" for the cancellation and Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu spoke of "sensitivity on Gaza, East Jerusalem and al-Aqsa mosque". The Turks specifically rejected Israeli planes that may have attacked Hamas (an Islamist terrorist organisation) during last winter's Gaza Strip operation. While Damascus applauded the disinvitation, it prompted the US and Italian governments to withdraw their forces from Anatolian Eagle, which in turn meant cancelling the international exercise.