The visit to Jerusalem of the Turkish Foreign Minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu, has not led to an exchange of ambassadors between the two countries, scrambled for years about the Palestinian question.
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Supposed to open a “new chapter” in degraded relations between Turkey and Israel, the visit to Jerusalem on Tuesday 24 and Wednesday 25 May, of Mevlüt çavusoglu, the head of Turkish diplomacy, did not produce significant advances, proof that normalization between these two states is progressing very small.
Braged for years about the Palestinian issue, Israel and Turkey are trying to reconnect. After the visit to Ankara and Istanbul of the Israeli president, Isaac Herzog, in March, in March, the stay in Jerusalem of Mr. çavusoglu, the first in fifteen years of a senior Turkish official, was to mark a turning point. An exchange of ambassadors was expected because, since 2018, diplomatic representation has been in the hands of business charges. She will remain so. At the end of their interviews, on Wednesday, the Turkish Minister and his Israeli counterpart, Yaïr Lapid, said they wanted to strengthen economic cooperation, continue dialogue, but without announcing their intention to exchange ambassadors.
“We led fruitful, frank and determined talks, and we agreed on a new framework for our relations,” said the head of Israeli diplomacy at the joint press conference on Wednesday. Mr. Lapid did not hide the stormy nature of relations with Turkey and minimized his expectations. “We have always been able to return to dialogue and cooperation,” he said. Before making himself the architect, in June 2021, of the fragile government coalition which he still holds at arm’s length, the minister had militated so that Israel reduces the level of his diplomatic relations with Turkey of Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
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Before President Herzog’s visit to Turkey, in March, a government official had already warned that this rapprochement would be led “like two pigs -epics who make love – with caution.” The Israeli authorities have indicated not to be excessively pressed to send an ambassador to Ankara.
The two parties agreed to resume the work of a joint economic commission. The volume of trade reached more than 7.5 billion euros in 2021 and the figures for the first quarter of 2022 are on the rise.
In the grip of economic difficulties, record inflation (70 % over a year in April), the depreciation of its currency and a cruel lack of investments, Turkey tries to break its isolation by normalizing its relations With several countries from which it had moved away, notably Israel, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.
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