Israel and Turkey resume diplomatic relations

Aug. 17 (EUROPA PRESS) –

Israel has announced that it will resume diplomatic relations with Turkey after a rupture of more than ten years that was triggered by the death in 2010 of ten activists in the Israeli assault on the ship ‘Mavi Marmara’, which was part of the so-called Flotilla of the Freedom and was trying to get around the blockade imposed on the Gaza Strip.

“The renewal of relations with Turkey is an important asset for regional stability and economically very important for the citizens of Israel. We will continue to act and strengthen Israel’s international status in the world,” said Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid. it’s a statement.

In this sense, Lapid has reported that, after a conversation between the director general of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Alon Ushpiz, and Turkey’s deputy ambassador, Sadat Onal, it has been decided “to raise the level of relations to full diplomatic representation” .

Thus, the restoration of the ambassadors and consuls general of both countries will take place. “Improving relations will contribute to deepening the relationship between the two nations, increasing economic, trade and tourism ties, and will also contribute to strengthening regional stability,” he added.

Relations between Israel and Turkey were interrupted in 2010, after the Israeli Navy killed several pro-Palestinian Turkish activists by causing a naval blockade of the Gaza Strip.

In June 2016, the two countries said they would normalize relations, a rapprochement fueled by potential gas deals and mutual fears about security risks in the Middle East.

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

The rapprochement comes after last March, the presidents of Israel and Turkey, Isaac Herzog and Recep Tayyip Erdogan, respectively, ensured that the former’s official visit to Ankara, the first in more than ten years to the country by a Israeli leader, was a “turning point” between nations.

“The restoration of diplomatic relations is a continuation of the positive trend in the development of relations in the past year, since the visit of the country’s president, Isaac Herzog, to Ankara and the mutual visits of the foreign ministers to Jerusalem and Ankara”, recalled this Wednesday Lapid.

Turkey’s Foreign Minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu, was also in favor of a rapprochement with Israel in May, when he went to the country and assured that the “normalization” of bilateral relations would have “a positive impact” on the resolution of the Palestinian conflict. -Israeli.

“We believe that the normalization of our ties will have a positive impact on the resolution of the conflict,” he stressed during a joint press conference with Lapid, in an act in which he stressed that the two-state solution “is the only one for a lasting peace “.