Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has no plans for the time being to add the Gaza Strip to his "Arab Spring" tour scheduled to begin next Monday, Turkish sources said.

"For now there is no visit to Gaza in our programme," a source close to his office, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told AFP.

"What we have in our programme is a trip to Egypt, Tunisia and Libya."

Erdogan threatened to visit Gaza, entering via neighbouring Egypt amid a new chill in Turkey's ties with Israel after the Jewish state's refusal to apologise for last year's deadly raid on a Turkish ship which killed nine people.

Such a visit to the Palestinian territory governed by the radical Islamic Hamas movement would be bound to further infuriate Israel.

"A trip to Gaza is not currently on our agenda as Turkey does not want to put the new Egyptian administration in difficulty," said a Turkish diplomat on condition of anonymity.

Erdogan's tour will begin in Egypt on September 12.

On Thursday Erdogan said Turkish warships would escort any aid ships trying to reach Gaza in defiance of an Israeli naval blockade, in a bid to protect them from Israeli forces.

"Turkish warships will be tasked with protecting the Turkish boats bringing humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip," Erdogan told Al-Jazeera television, according to an Arabic translation of his comments in Turkish.

"From now on, we will no longer allow these boats to be the targets of attacks by Israel, like the one on the Freedom Flotilla, because then Israel will have to deal with an appropriate response," he warned.

Israel has not officially commented on the threat.