A senior Israeli minister is slated to travel to Turkey this week, marking the first such trip since Jerusalem and Ankara announced a reconciliation deal after six years of ruptured relations.
Minister of National Infrastructure, Energy, and Water Resources Yuval Steinitz is set to attend the World Energy Congress in Istanbul, where he may also meet with Turkey’s Minister of Energy and Natural Resources Berat Albayrak to discuss gas deals between the two nations. While an Israeli foreign ministry official told Agence France-Presse on Monday that the meeting is “not certain” yet, Steinitz’s office announced last week that the ministers plan to “discuss the export of gas from Israel to Turkey, and cooperation on energy matters between the two countries,” Globes reported. The meeting will be the first on the ministerial level since the restoration of diplomatic ties.
Kemal Okem, a close adviser to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was selected to become his country’s new ambassador to Israel, Turkish media reported on Friday. The appointment has not yet been officially confirmed.
Israel’s strengthening ties with Turkey and other regional powers led former State Department official Josh Cohen to observe last month that “Israel’s diplomatic gains have never been greater.” His assessment echoed that of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who said in March that “today we have diplomatic relations with 161 countries – more than at any time in our history.”
Israeli natural gas finds in the eastern Mediterranean, which may lead to deals with Turkey, have also spurred closer ties with Cyprus and Greece. While a ruling by Israel’s Supreme Court in March invalidated a deal that gave two companies the rights to develop the gas fields, top officials from both nations met with Israeli counterparts the following month to explore opportunities for cooperation in the energy sector. Herb Keinon, The Jerusalem Post’s diplomatic correspondent, observed in January that Israel leveraged these relations to get diplomatic support from Greece and Cyprus within the European Union, a move that would have been unthinkable a decade ago.
Israel has also seen its commercial and military relations with India flourish in recent years, and is set to begin negotiating a free trade agreement with China. Netanyahu has further made it a priority to strengthen Israel’s ties with African countries, and personally toured four east African nations in July. Weeks later, the Muslim-majority Republic of Guinea restored diplomatic ties with Israel after a 49-year break.
Israel has a long history of sharing its expertise with African nations, and Jerusalem hopes that increased bilateral ties will lead to a shift in voting trends at the United Nations and other global fora, thus improving Israel’s diplomatic standing and reversing what Netanyahu called “the automatic majority against Israel.”
In a bid to counter Israeli diplomatic successes in Africa, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in July met with and embraced Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. The two “discussed developing a strategy for the African continent and coordinating to restrain Israeli attempts to make a breakthrough in Africa,” the PA’s foreign minister told reporters in Khartoum.
Ayoub Kara, a Druze member of the Likud and Israel’s Deputy Minister of Regional Cooperation, told Tablet Magazine in August that “our relations with our neighbors are the best they’ve ever been.” Tablet then enumerated examples of the improved relations:
Last November, Israel quietly opened its first diplomatic office in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, inside the headquarters of the United Nations’ International Renewable Energy Agency. In July, Israeli diplomats had hardly caught their breath from the visit of Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry, the first in nine years, before receiving a high-ranking Saudi delegation headed by retired general Anwar Ishqi. Having now signed a reconciliation deal with Turkey, Israel is experiencing a diplomatic renaissance with almost all of its regional neighbors.
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