Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met for the first time yesterday, Tuesday, amid a slow improvement in relations between the two countries, which had been strained due to disagreements over policies towards the Palestinians. A statement from Netanyahu's office indicated that the two leaders, who spoke on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly, agreed to exchange visits soon. Israeli Channel 12 reported that Erdoğan might seek to celebrate the centenary of the founding of the Turkish Republic next month with a visit to a prominent mosque in Jerusalem. There has been no official confirmation of this report.
Relations between the former allies collapsed after Israeli forces killed ten Turks in a raid in 2010 on a ship carrying pro-Palestinian activists attempting to break the blockade on Gaza, which is governed by the Hamas movement that is banned in the West. Ankara expelled the Israeli ambassador, a step that was reversed in 2016 but was repeated two years later due to the killing of dozens of Palestinians participating in violent protests at the Gaza border. Israel, which complained about Ankara hosting leaders from Hamas, expelled the Turkish ambassador in 2018.
The visit of Israeli President Isaac Herzog to Turkey in March 2022, followed by visits from foreign ministers, helped improve relations after more than a decade of tension. The Turkish presidency posted on the social media platform "X" about their meeting on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, stating that the leaders discussed political, economic, and regional issues, in addition to the Israeli-Palestinian issue. The presidency noted that Erdoğan told Netanyahu that the two countries could cooperate in the fields of energy, technology, innovation, artificial intelligence, and cybersecurity.
