Israel and Turkey have blazoned a new period in relations following further than a decade of political rupture, as Israeli President Isaac Herzog made a corner visit to the Turkish capital, Ankara.
Herzog’s Turkey trip, which included addresses with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday, was the first by an Israeli chairman since 2007 when the late Shimon Peres addressed the Turkish congress.
Appearing before cameras following the addresses, Erdogan described the Israeli chairman’s visit as “ major” and “ a turning point” in Turkish-Israeli relations. He said Turkey was ready to cooperate with Israel in the energy sector, adding that the Turkish foreign and energy ministers would soon visit Israel for further addresses on increased cooperation.
“ Our common thing is to revitalize political dialogue between our countries grounded on common interests and respect for collective perceptivity,” Erdogan said.
The visit was a “ veritably important moment for the relations between our countries, and a great honor for the two of us to lay the foundations of developing friendly relations between our countries and nations, and to make islands essential to us all”, Herzog said in a statement in Hebrew.
Both leaders conceded, still, that differences remain — not least on the issue of the Palestinians.
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“ We expressed the significance we attach to reducing pressures in the region and conserving the vision of a two-state result,” Erdogan said. “ I underscored the significance we attach to the literal status of Jerusalem and the preservation of the religious identity and saintship of Masjid Aqsa,” the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem’s major Old City.
Israel captured East Jerusalem with its Jewish, Christian, and Muslim holy spots — the emotional ground zero of the further than century-long conflict — in the 1967 war and adjoined it in a move unrecognized by the utmost of the transnational community. The Palestinian leadership has frequently sought East Jerusalem as the capital of an unborn state including the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
“ We must agree in advance that we won’t agree on everything, that’s the nature of relations with a history as rich as ours,” Herzog said. “ But the dissensions we will aspire to resolve with collective respect and openness, through the proper mechanisms and systems, with a view to a participated future,” he said.
Ankara has close ties with Hamas, which governs the Gaza Strip. The United States and European Union have designated Hamas as a “ terrorist” organization.
And despite visibly toning down its review of Israel in advance of Herzog’s visit, Ankara has ruled out abandoning its commitment to supporting Palestinian statehood.
A rocky relation
Ties between the two countries have been rocky for colorful reasons, in particular after the death of 10 civilians in an Israeli raid on the Turkish Mavi Marmara boat, part of a procession trying to transgress an Israeli leaguer on besieged Gaza by carrying aid into the home in 2010.
After times of frozen ties, a 2016 conciliation agreement saw the return of ministers, but it collapsed in 2018 in the wake of the Great March of Return demurrers. Further, than 200 Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire across a period of several months as Palestinian deportees protested to return to their homes in present-day Israel from where they were ethnically sanctified in 1948. The months-long demurrers also called for an end to the siege assessed on the Gaza Strip by Israel.
Turkey recalled its diplomats and ordered Israel’s envoy out of the country in 2018, as the bilateral relations hit another low.
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Although the Israeli chairman’s post is largely conventional and any concrete way towards fellowship will bear the blessing of Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, Herzog’s visit marks a significant thaw in ties.
The last visit by an Israeli chairman to Turkey was in 2007 and the last trip by a high minister came the ensuing time. Erdogan and Bennett spoke in November, the first similar call in times.
The way towards a fellowship with Israel comes as Turkey, beset by profitable troubles, has been trying to end its transnational insulation by perfecting simulated ties with several countries in the region, including Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia.
