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Following Erdogan's remarks: Ashkenazi instructed to open "explorations" with Turkey to normalize relations
Senior Israeli officials said that the foreign minister convened a meeting yesterday with officials from his ministry, the National Security Council, the Ministry of Defense and the Mossad to decide how to respond to signals coming from Turkey in recent weeks.
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Gabi Ashkenazi
Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Recep Tayyip Erdogan
Turkey
Lightning Ravid
Thursday, December 31, 2020, 7:30 p.m.
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In the video: Erdogan declares that Turkey is interested in improving relations with Israel (Photo: Reuters)
Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi has instructed to open talks with Turkey to find out the seriousness of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's intentions regarding improving relations with Israel, two senior officials in Jerusalem said.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Lior Hayat declined to comment.
Ashkenazi convened a discussion yesterday (Wednesday) on relations with Turkey, which was attended by senior Foreign Ministry officials, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's political adviser and National Security Adviser Reuven Ezer, as well as representatives of the Ministry of Defense and the Mossad.
The debate came amid a series of signals coming to Israel from Turkey in recent weeks, the most recent of which was Erdogan's public statement last week about his desire to improve relations.
At the end of Friday's prayer in Istanbul, Erdogan said that Turkey continues its intelligence cooperation with Israel and wants to "lead relations to a better point."
However, he noted that if it were not for the "people at the top of the pyramid" in Israel and if Israeli policy toward the Palestinians had improved, relations between the two countries could have improved.
For several weeks they did not know in Jerusalem whether to take the Turkish messages seriously.
For example, reports that Turkey has appointed a new ambassador to Tel Aviv.
The Foreign Ministry checked whether this was true, but all the tests revealed that the person whose name was mentioned in the publications was not appointed.
Read more on the subject
Erdogan: Interested in improving relations with Israel, the problem is with those at its head
Convened a discussion following a series of signals coming from the direction of Turkey.
Ashkenazi (Photo: Ministry of Foreign Affairs)
At the same time, Israel received messages from Azerbaijan regarding its desire to mediate between Israel and Turkey.
As reported in Walla!
NEWS, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev spoke by phone with Erdogan and discussed the Israeli issue with him.
After the conversation, Aliyev's aides told senior Israeli officials that Erdogan had shown a positive attitude toward Israel during the conversation.
Israel did not know if this was indeed an initiated Turkish message or an attempt by Azerbaijan to take on the role of mediator.
A senior Israeli source said Erdogan's statement last Friday turned some of the question marks into exclamation marks and led to Ashkenazi's decision to hold a discussion on relations with Turkey with representatives from all relevant government ministries.
In the discussion, it was decided to use the various channels that Israel has with Turkey in order to investigate and find out whether Erdogan is indeed willing to change his attitude toward Israel.
However, at this stage it was decided that Israel would not respond formally and publicly to its statements.
More on Walla!
NEWS
The President of Azerbaijan is trying to mediate between Israel and Turkey in order to restore relations between them
To the full article
"Want to lead the relationship to a better point."
Erdogan (Photo: AP)
Relations between Israel and Turkey, formerly close allies, have deteriorated since Operation Cast Lead in Gaza in 2008, and were almost completely frozen after the 2010 Mavi Marmara flotilla to Gaza.
In 2013, while visiting Israel, then-US President Barack Obama spoke on the phone with Erdogan and Prime Minister Netanyahu to initiate a reconciliation process.
Talks between the parties faltered until an agreement was finally reached to normalize relations in 2016, in which the two countries sent ambassadors to Ankara and Tel Aviv and resumed political and security dialogue.
But in 2018 the relationship ran into another crisis around the events on the Temple Mount.
Turkey expelled the Israeli ambassador, and a similar step was taken in Jerusalem.
A signal about the desire to warm up the relationship in the background of his entry into the White House.
Biden (Photo: Reuters)
In Jerusalem, it is estimated that the Turks are signaling their desire to warm up relations, especially in light of Joe Biden's imminent entry into the White House and their fear of American sanctions.
The Turks have mainly marked the issue of gas exploration in the eastern Mediterranean - in which they have a difficult dispute with Greece and Cyprus - as an area in which they want to cooperate with Israel.
Senior Israeli officials said they were very careful about the Turkish issue and were very suspicious of Erdogan's intentions.
According to them, in any case, Israel does not intend to damage its relations with Greece and Cyprus in order to restore relations with Turkey.
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