Israel and Turkey Renew Diplomatic Ties

On Wednesday, Turkey and Israel announced a complete renewal of the diplomatic ties between the two countries.

This was after a phone conversation took place between Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish President, and Yair Lapid, the Israeli Prime Minister.

Ties renewed

A statement from the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) said that Lapid regards the renewal as an important asset that would help in ensuring regional stability.

He also added that the news was also good for Israeli citizens from an economic aspect and said that they would continue strengthening the country’s standing globally.

As the ties between the two countries are to be upgraded, they plan on exchanging consuls general and ambassadors, but no timeline was shared for this purpose.

The statement from the PMO said that President Isaac Herzog had visited Ankara last year and foreign ministers had also visited Ankara and Jerusalem.

It said that the new agreement between the two countries would result in strengthening of cultural ties and regional stability and also ensure economic trade growth.

Earlier this year, the Israeli president had made a rare visit to Turkey and welcomed the renewal of relations.

He said that the development was an important one and they had been moving towards it in the past year.

He added that this would encourage mutual tourism, greater economic relations as well as friendship between the citizens of the two countries.

Final agreement

Relations had been warming up between the two countries for a year now and the final agreement was made on Tuesday.

This was after a conversation between Alon Ushpiz, the director-general of the Israeli Foreign Ministry, and Sedat Onal, the Deputy Foreign Minister of Turkey.

On Wednesday, Mevlut Cavusoglu, the Turkish Foreign Minister, said that despite renewing their ties with Israel, they would not abandon the Palestinian cause.

He added that bilateral ties could only be improved with the return of the ambassadors and said that they would continue to defend Palestinian rights.

The news was welcomed by Yoel Razbozov, the Tourism Minister, who said that Israel wanted to host Turkish tourists, as this would strengthen the industry and the connection between the two nations.

Previous issues

Turkey and Israel had been regional allies until 2010 when 10 Turkish activists had died because of a commando raid on Mavi Marmara, bound for Gaza.

They had attacked Israeli soldiers who had boarded the ship and this resulted in their deaths. Even though Benjamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister at that time, had apologized officially, Erdogan had remained angry.

As a matter of fact, he had gone as far as accusing Israel of keeping Hitler’s spirit alive. Relations had improved moderately between the two countries over time.

However, they had withdrawn their ambassadors, as Erdogan accused Israel of ‘genocide’ and ‘state terrorism’ when dozens of Palestinians were killed in 2018.

There had been signals that Erdogan was ready to resume relations once again, which prompted the Israeli president to visit Ankara in March.

A full military procession had welcomed him in the capital.