Turkey and Israel will seek ways to mend once close relations and look to overcome years of strained ties as their presidents meet for the first time in more than a decade to discuss steps to improve cooperation.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog is arriving in Ankara on Wednesday on a two-day trip that both sides have said will address potential areas of cooperation and explore ways to deepen bilateral relations.
Throughout the years of tensions, the countries maintained trade links, which remained at high levels and even hit a record last year.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Herzog are expected to review all aspects of Turkey-Israel bilateral ties and discuss steps that can be taken to improve cooperation, particularly in energy, trade and security.
The presidents will also hold talks on recent regional and international developments, particularly Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, where both nations have ramped up diplomacy to mediate and help end the conflict.
Trade at record high
Trade between Turkey and Israel has been surging over the past five years, before hitting a record $8.4 billion last year, according to official data, up from $6.2 billion in 2020.
Exports to Israel leaped more than 35% year-over-year to $6.4 billion last year, an all-time high, according to the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat). Imports jumped nearly 37% to $2.1 billion.
Israel is among the countries Turkey registers a trade surplus with and has been its ninth biggest export market.
Erdoğan has said the visit will herald a "new era" and that the two countries could work together, particularly in carrying Israeli natural gas to Europe, reviving an idea first discussed more than 20 years ago.
Turkey and Israel had previously attempted to cooperate on energy resources, but those talks had never moved very far.
Herzog last week called Turkey "a very important neighbor of ours," stressing that the country has a "huge impact on our lives in many fields."
"We have to ... if possible, to lower the tension and move on in a true dialogue that would definitely include issues of climate and the economy," he said on the sidelines of his visit to Greek Cyprus.
Energy cooperation
The head of the Israeli firm pumping gas from a giant field in the Eastern Mediterranean said the company could supply Turkey if it provided infrastructure, though he did not comment on Erdoğan’s proposal to link it to Europe.
"Our position has always been clear. If you want gas, great. We are ready to give. You build the pipeline to us and we will supply gas," Yossi Abu, chief executive of NewMed Energy, was cited by Reuters as telling an investors conference two weeks ago.
Erdoğan last month expressed Turkey’s interest in resuming talks with Israel on using its natural gas and transporting it to Europe.
"We can use Israeli natural gas in our country, and beyond using it, we can also engage in a joint effort on its passage to Europe," he said.
Erdoğan has said energy cooperation could be on the agenda during talks with Herzog.
Gas supplies from the Mediterranean could ease European dependence on Russian gas. Plans for a subsea pipeline that would carry Israeli gas from the Eastern Mediterranean to Europe via Greek Cyprus and Greece to Europe, excluding Turkey, have stalled after the United States expressed misgivings in January.
Turkey has long opposed the project and has stressed that any scheme that aims to sideline the rights of Turkey and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) in the Eastern Mediterranean will be unsuccessful.
The EastMed pipeline had also enjoyed the support of the former Trump administration in the U.S. However, the Biden administration, in an apparent U-turn, in January expressed misgivings about the project, citing concerns over its economic viability and environmental costs.
Erdoğan said the U.S. pulled its support because the project makes no economic sense, reiterating his view that such a project "cannot work without Turkey."
The 1,900-kilometer (1,180-mile) project would initially be expected to carry 10 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas a year. But it remains unclear whether the 6-billion-euro ($6.82 billion) scheme will ever go ahead.
It would transport gas from Israeli and Greek Cyprus to Greece and into Europe’s gas network via Italy. But regional politics could well scupper such plans.
Turkey imports most of its energy but has announced the discovery of 540 bcm of natural gas in the Black Sea that it hopes to extract next year.
Rapprochement
Herzog’s visit marks a significant thaw in ties, although his post is largely ceremonial and any concrete steps toward rapprochement will require the approval of Prime Minister Naftali Bennett.
The last visit by an Israeli president to Turkey was in 2007 and the last trip by a prime minister came the following year. Erdoğan and Bennett spoke in November, the first such call in years.
The visit comes amid Turkey’s efforts to repair frayed relations with several countries in the region, an initiative that resulted in Erdoğan announcing in January that he had invited Herzog for talks.
Relations cratered in 2010 as both countries pulled their ambassadors after the deaths of 10 civilians in an Israeli raid on a Turkish flotilla that was trying to break an Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip to deliver humanitarian aid.
Diplomatic ties hit a low in 2018 when Turkey recalled its ambassador to Israel again following the U.S. decision to relocate its embassy to Jerusalem.
Ankara, which supports a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, has condemned Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and its policy toward Palestinians, while Israel has called on Turkey to drop support for the Palestinian group Hamas which runs Gaza.
Despite the rapprochement, Turkey has ruled out abandoning its commitment to supporting Palestinian statehood.