Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan held a meeting with Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz in the capital Ankara on Thursday with the aim of boosting defense cooperation following the gradual resumption of diplomatic relations between the two nations.
Gantz landed in Ankara on Wednesday night on what is his first official trip to Turkey more than ten years after the full restoration of diplomatic relations with the country following the appointment of ambassadors last August.
Ties between the two countries were severed by the death in 2010 of ten activists in the Israeli assault on the ship ‘Mavi Marmara’, which was part of the so-called Freedom Flotilla and was trying to circumvent the blockade imposed against the Gaza Strip.
The rapprochement came after last March, the presidents of Israel and Turkey, Isaac Herzog and Recep Tayyip Erdogan, respectively, assured that the former’s official visit to Ankara, the first in more than ten years to the country by an Israeli president, was a «turning point» between the nations.
In the presence of Hulusi Akar, Turkish Defense Minister, Gantz discussed with Erdogan «strategic issues», as well as «the commitment of the two countries to work for stability, prosperity and security in the Middle East and the Eastern Mediterranean», according to the newspaper ‘The Times of Israel’.
Gantz has thanked Erdogan for the arrest in July of several Iranians who planned to attack or kidnap Israeli tourists in Istanbul at the end of July after the National Security Council pointed to the existence of danger to its citizens in the Turkish city in the face of possible retaliation for the death of a senior member of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Quds Force.
«This counter-terrorism activity is of great importance for the ability to strengthen cooperation and renew official defense relations between the countries,» he said, adding that despite the fact that «it is no secret» that both nations «have faced challenges,» Turkey is currently one of their main trading partners.
«In the future, we must take a firm and positive approach to our relations, maintaining an open dialogue. As agreed in our meetings, I have instructed my staff (in the Defense Ministry) to begin the necessary procedures to resume relations,» Gantz has concluded.
