As relations between Israel and Turkey strengthen, Israeli President Isaac Herzog invited President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to visit his country on Wednesday.
The Duke spoke as he received newly appointed Turkish Ambassador Shakir Ozkan Torunlar, who presented his credentials to the President.
Last year, the Duke, whose role is largely ceremonial, became the first Israeli leader to visit Turkey since 2008, after the two countries began to mend relations and end more than a decade of diplomatic rift.
In August, they agreed on the mutual appointment of ambassadors, and after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu won the election in November, he and Erdogan agreed to continue to improve relations. “I am sure that we will all work to strengthen relations between countries,” Herzog said.
Netanyahu’s return to power at the head of a nationalist-religious government in December has rattled Palestinians, as well as Western and Arab allies, who fear it could heighten tensions in the Middle East. Last week, Turkey joined the chorus of condemning the visit of Israel’s new far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, to the delicate Al-Aqsa Mosque complex in East Jerusalem, Islam’s third-most important site and holiest to Judaism.
The countries withdrew their ambassadors in 2010 after Israeli forces stormed a Gaza-bound flotilla carrying humanitarian aid for the Palestinians that had broken the Israeli blockade.
Nine Turkish activists were killed in the incident. Relations broke down again in 2018 when Turkey, angered that the United States moved its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, withdrew its ambassador yet again, prompting Israel to respond in kind. The two countries did not reappoint their ambassadors for a long time until Irit Lilian presented her credentials to Erdogan in December as Israel’s new ambassador.
