President Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday that Turkey would like to have better ties with Israel, adding that talks at intelligence level continued between the two sides.
The two countries have had a bitter falling out in recent years, despite strong commercial ties, expelling ambassadors in 2018. Ankara has repeatedly condemned Israel’s occupation in the West Bank and its treatment of Palestinians.
“We are having issues with people at the top level,” Erdogan told reporters in Istanbul after Friday prayers. “If there were no issues at the top level, our ties could have been very different,” he said, adding that Israel’s policies on Palestine were “unacceptable.””We cannot accept their ruthless behavior there and his attitude towards the Palestinian land,” said Erdogan, according to Turkish media.Azerbaijan reportedly has been working to try and renew ties between Israel and Turkey, Walla! news reported on Wednesday. Israel and Turkey both offered the government of Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev military support during the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War.
Aliyev allegedly phoned Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan this week and suggested various paths into improving diplomatic relations between Turkey and Israel.
Erdogan was reported to respond positively to the overtures, Walla! reported, and officials in Azerbaijan told their Israeli counterparts that the Turkish politician was swayed into anti-Israeli rhetoric due to the influence of former aids.
Last week, Azeri Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov allegedly called Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi to discuss the same issue with the message that his country would be interested to see both of its allies enjoying improved relations.
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Jerusalem Post Staff contributed to this report.
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