After Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan publicly declared last week that he wants to improve relations with Israel, the Israeli government decided to start a broadcast in Turkey in order to determine whether its intentions are sincere, two officials told me. israelians.
Why it’s important: Relations between Israel and Turkey, once close allies, began to deteriorate in 2008 and have entered an ongoing state of crisis. In 2018, Turkey downgraded its diplomatic relations with Israel following the riots around Temple Mount in Jerusalem.
Driving the news: In recent weeks, Turkey has sent ambiguous signals to Israel, either through the press or from third parties, such as the president of Azerbaijan, Axios first reported.
- Last Friday, Erdogan told reporters that Turkey maintains relations with Israel through intelligence channels and stressed: “We have some difficulties with the people above.”
- The Turkish president said his country cannot accept Israeli policy towards the Palestinians, but added: “Our heart wants us to be able to move our relations with them to a better point.”
- The Israeli government does not know how to read the signals coming from Turkey, but Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi decided to hold a meeting on the issue after Erdoğan’s statements.
- The meeting, which took place on Wednesday at the Foreign Ministry, was also attended by senior officials from the Prime Minister’s Office, the Ministry of Defense and the Mossad.
What follows: Israeli officials who received information about the meeting told me that Ashkenazi said he would start sending “calm feelings” to the Turks through various channels to assess the seriousness of Erdogan’s improved relations with Israel.
- Officials said Israel will not publish any formal and public reaction to Erdogan’s statements and will try to involve the Turkish government in private.
- The spokesman for the Israeli foreign ministry declined to comment.
The big picture: Israeli officials think Erdogan’s new tone is directly related to the upcoming inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden.
- Erdogan is concerned that Biden, who has called the Turkish leader an “autocrat”, will take a hard line with Turkey and that the warming of relations with Israel could add points to the new US president.
- Israeli officials say they will be very cautious, given their suspicions about Erdoğan’s true intentions. In any case, Israel will not harm its relations with Greece and Cyprus to repair relations with Turkey.
Flashback: Turkish-Israeli relations have deteriorated since the 2008 Gaza war. Contacts froze almost completely after the 2010 “Gaza Flotilla incident,” in which Israeli commanders attacked activists trying to breach an Israeli blockade to deliver aid to Gaza.
- Then-President Barack Obama facilitated a trilateral phone call with Netanyahu and Erdogan in 2013 to try to foster a reconciliation deal.
- These talks lasted until 2016 and the eventual agreement was unraveled two years later, when a new crisis arose over Temple Mount.