Turkey’s foreign minister: “We have decided to appoint an ambassador to Israel”

Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu announced that a decision had been made to appoint an ambassador to Israel as part of the normalization process, after a positive response from Israel.

According to media, Cavusoglu noted the following: “The dialogue process began in Israel after the new government took office. As a result, the steps we will take to normalize relations also included appointing ambassadors. We have announced that we have started the work on the appointment of ambassadors. A positive step has also come from Israel. As Turkey, we have decided to appoint an ambassador to Israel. I wish the best. After that, the process of determining the names begins.”

Normalization

After the Mavi Marmara (ship) raid, the relations which normalized in 2016 with the agreement reached between the two countries, deteriorated again in 2018 during the ‘Great Return’ actions of the Palestinians. During the 11-day conflict between Israel and Palestinian groups in Gaza, as President Tayyip Erdogan has expressed many times before, he accused Israel of being a ‘terrorist state’ and the ‘Palestinian diplomacy’ that he tried to mediate between the parties Decisively failed.

Relations, which were not good for a long while, were re-energized with the visit of Israeli President Isaac Herzog to Ankara in early March with the aim of ‘reviving the political dialogue’. After Erdogan’s visit to Herzog, the foreign and energy ministers had started contacts.