Israel and Turkey sign a draft agreement on civil aviation that would replace the 1951

July 7. (EUROPA PRESS) –

The governments of Israel and Turkey have signed this Thursday a draft agreement on civil aviation that would replace the existing pact, which dates back to 1951, and which could lead to the resumption of direct flights between the two countries, which have been working for months to improve their bilateral relations.

The signing comes about a month after the foreign ministers of Israel and Turkey, Yair Lapid –who is also the Israeli prime minister– and Mevlut Cavusoglu, respectively, agreed to work towards a new agreement to boost ties between both countries.

Irit Lillian, Israeli charge d’affaires in Ankara, stressed that this is “a first step” towards an official agreement. “The two governments have to finish the process according to their procedures, after which the document will be ready for the signature of the ministers and will be applied,” she explained.

In this sense, he has defended that it is an important step since “it means that the agreement is ready”, according to the newspaper ‘The Times of Israel’. The final agreement will reflect changes in aviation procedures, laws and technology, while modifying the number of direct flights between the two countries.

Relations between the two countries were broken after the death of ten activists in the 2010 assault on the ship ‘Mavi Marmara’, which was part of the so-called Freedom Flotilla and was trying to circumvent the blockade imposed against the Gaza Strip.

Despite the fact that both countries reached an agreement in 2016 to restore their relations, ties have not been fully restored and they even expelled their ambassadors in 2018 due to the repression by the Israeli security forces against thousands of Palestinian protesters in the Gaza Strip.

However, in recent months there have been several official trips between senior officials of both countries to relaunch relations, including a visit to Ankara by the President of Israel, Isaac Herzog, to meet with his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.