A senior Turkish delegation is set to visit Israel this week, ahead of President Isaac Herzog’s planned meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Turkish Deputy Foreign Minister Sedat Önal and Senior Adviser and Spokesman to Erdogan Ibrahim Kalin will lead the delegation.
They are set to meet with Foreign Ministry Director-General Alon Ushpiz, President’s Residence Deputy-General Eyal Shviki and other senior officials in both offices.
The visit comes after Ushpiz traveled to Turkey in December 2021 to discuss Herzog’s visit and improved relations between Ankara and Jerusalem.
Herzog’s visit will be the first by an Israeli leader in over a decade, following a period of tensions between Israel and Turkey. The presidents have spoken on the phone multiple times since Herzog took his position last year.
Earlier this month, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said Israel was treading cautiously when it came to Erdogan’s overtures.
“Things are happening very slowly and gradually,” Bennett said, adding that Herzog’s trip to Ankara is fully coordinated with him.
Bennett effusively praised Herzog’s role in Israel’s foreign relations, calling him “an extraordinary diplomatic asset for solving problems.”
“We have total trust. I don’t know when there was last a relationship like this” between a president and a prime minister, he added.
A senior diplomatic source said that Bennett and the government are proceeding very cautiously with Turkey, but that “we don’t have to force ourselves to be purists in a way that will prevent us from creating alliances.”
The source pointed out that the United Arab Emirates is talking to Turkey again after years of tensions, and that Turkey and Iran “are not good friends, to say the least.”
Erdogan said repeatedly in 2021 that he was open to improving relations with Israel, while at the same time a reversal that may be related to Turkey’s declining economy and poor relations with the US.
At the same time, his government harbors Hamas terrorists. Last month, the Turkish Foreign Ministry criticized Israel for evicting Palestinians who had illegally built their homes and businesses on public land, and Turkey’s Ministry of Religious Affairs organized a “symposium meant to raise awareness about conflict in Jerusalem and al-Aqsa Mosque. Erdogan has accused Israel of intentionally killing Palestinian children, and the state-controlled media has broadcast antisemitic television series.
Tensions between Israel and Turkey began in 2008, when then-prime minister Ehud Olmert met with Erdogan and launched Operation Cast Lead in Gaza days later.
The low point in Israel-Turkey ties was in 2010, when the Erdogan-linked IHH (Humanitarian Relief Foundation) sent the Mavi Marmara ship to bust the IDF’s naval blockade on Gaza, arming some of the people aboard. IDF naval commandos stopped the ship, were attacked by IHH members aboard and killed nine of them.
Israel and Turkey maintained diplomatic relations in the aftermath, even reinstalling ambassadors in 2016. But two years later, Ankara expelled Israel’s ambassador over the IDF response to rioting on the Gaza border.
