Turkey’s Erdogan Plans to Visit Occupied Territories After November Elections
ANKARA (Dispatches) – Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan plans to visit the Israeli-occupied territories after the country’s 1 November parliamentary elections, a senior Turkish official told Middle East Eye.
Erdogan will meet a Zionist prime minister for the first time since 2008, when he met Ehud Olmert in Ankara.
Zionist prime minister Yair Lapid’s office confirmed over the weekend that he would meet Erdogan in New York on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly.
Erdogan, who met Zionist representatives in the U.S. on Monday, has increased his engagements with the occupying regime’s officials since the two decided to repair their ties last year.
The president hasn’t visited the occupied territories since 2005, when he was prime minister.
The two last month announced that they had decided to fully restore diplomatic ties and assign ambassadors. The occupying regime has already named its ambassador to Ankara. Turkey has yet to appoint its own ambassador.
Relations between Turkey and the Zionist regime have been rocky since 2011, when Ankara expelled the regime’s ambassador following a UN report into Israel’s 2010 raid on the Mavi Marmara aid ship to Gaza, which killed nine Turkish citizens.
The rift was healed in 2016 when full diplomatic relations were restored and both sides traded ambassadors.
Tensions were renewed in 2018 when Zionist troops killed scores of Palestinians taking part in the Great March of Return protests in the Gaza Strip. The protesters demanded the implementation of refugees’ right of return and an end to the crippling 11-year siege on Gaza.
Turkey recalled all its diplomats and ordered the regime’s envoy out of the country.