BSS :
Israel’s president left for Turkey Wednesday to meet his counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the first visit by an Israeli head of state since 2007, as the countries seek to mend fractured ties.
President Isaac Herzog’s visit to Ankara and Istanbul was in the making weeks before Russia invaded Ukraine, but the conflict could feature at the talks, with both Israel and Turkey playing mediation roles in recent days.
But bilateral issues are likely to dominate following more than a decade of diplomatic rupture between the Jewish state and majority Muslim Turkey, a vocal supporter of the Palestinian cause.
“We will not agree on everything, and the relationship between Israel and Turkey has certainly known ups and downs and not-so-simple moments in recent years,” Herzog said before departing.
“But we shall try to restart our relations and build them in a measured and cautious manner,” he added. Major issues on the agenda for the two-day trip will likely include gas sales to Europe, a topic that has acquired added urgency amid the Ukraine conflict.
Relations froze after the death of 10 civilians following an Israeli raid on the Turkish Mavi Marmara ship, part of a flotilla trying to breach a blockade by carrying aid into the Gaza Strip in 2010.
A 2016 reconciliation agreement that saw the return of ambassadors all but collapsed in 2018 in the wake of border clashes with Gaza, that saw dozens of Palestinians killed.Turkey recalled its diplomats and ordered Israel’s envoy out of the country.
In recent months, however, the countries have sought a rapprochement. Israel’s presidency is a largely ceremonial role, but Herzog, a veteran of the left-wing Labour party, has taken on an outsized diplomatic role. He has spoken to Erdogan several times since his inauguration in July. Israeli leaders were wary of Turkey’s outreach.
But Erdogan’s move to secure the release of an Israeli couple arrested in Istanbul in November on espionage charges proved a “turning point”, said Gallia Lindenstrauss of Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security Studies.
