Israel Appoints Irit Lillian as New Ambassador to Turkey

Sep. 20 (EUROPA PRESS) –

The Israeli Foreign Ministry has announced the appointment of Irit Lillian as the new ambassador to Turkey, in the midst of the process of rapprochement between the two countries in recent months.

Lillian, who has been Israel’s charge d’affaires in Ankara since February 2021, has played an important role in the reconciliation process, according to the newspaper ‘The Times of Israel’.

The appointment must still be approved by the Israeli government and, since it is in office ahead of the upcoming elections, by the Attorney General’s Office. However, it is expected to be a formality.

Israel has not had an ambassador in the country since 2018, when Turkey called its own for consultations and demanded that the Israeli ambassador leave the country due to the repression of protests in the Gaza Strip.

The governments of both countries announced in August that they would restore their diplomatic ties. Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan are scheduled to meet on Tuesday in New York on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly.

The approach comes after last March, the president of Israel, Isaac Herzog, and Erdogan assured that the official visit of the first to Ankara, the first in more than ten years to the country of an Israeli president, was a ” turning point” between nations.