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New ambassador to Israel: Sakir Özkan Torunlar (l.)
Photo: Raajessh Kashyap / Hindustan Times / IMAGO
In the course of the rapprochement with Israel, Turkey has now also appointed an ambassador for its mission abroad.
Sakir Özkan Torunlar will be the first Turkish ambassador to represent the country in Tel Aviv in four years, the state news agency Anadolu reported.
After announcing that it wanted to fully resume diplomatic relations, Israel had already appointed Irit Lillian as its new ambassador to Turkey in September.
In 2010, a rift broke out between the once close allies Turkey and Israel.
The trigger was the storming of a Gaza solidarity ship by the Israeli navy - ten Turkish citizens were killed.
In 2016 there was a first rapprochement.
However, since the Gaza crisis in 2018, which escalated around the opening of the US embassy in Jerusalem, the two countries have had no ambassadors in each other's countries.
According to the website of the Turkish consulate in East Jerusalem, the now appointed Torunlar was already the consul general from 2010 to 2014.
More diplomacy in the Arab world too
In the context of the so-called Abraham Agreement, Israel had tried in recent years to establish diplomatic relations with several Arab states.
It was only in 2020 that the country signed a communiqué with Bahrain to formally establish “unrestricted diplomatic relations”.
The same applies to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Morocco.
Israel had previously been largely isolated in the Arab world, with Tel Aviv only maintaining diplomatic contacts with Egypt and Jordan.
Israel is also seeking to establish diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia.
“The Saudis need to join the Abraham Accords family.
I would definitely be happy to come to Saudi Arabia for an open meeting in the future," President Yitzchak Herzog told the Israel Hajom newspaper in May.
bam/dpa