The Egyptian administration has approached Israel asking for clarifications regarding recent progress in its reconciliatory talks with Turkey, Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported on Friday, citing unnamed senior Israeli officials.

Officials allegedly said that Egypt expressed its reservations regarding granting Turkey a role in the Gaza Strip and asked whether Israel had committed to any easing of restrictions in the blockade imposed on Gaza. Senior Egyptian Foreign Ministry officials met with Israeli Ambassador Haim Koren and asked if these reports were correct and whether Israel and Turkey are indeed close to reconciling. The temporary chargé d'affaires at the Egyptian embassy in Tel Aviv delivered similar messages in a recent meeting with senior Foreign Ministry officials in Jerusalem. Egypt expressed its opposition to any Israeli concessions to Turkey with regard to the Gaza Strip.

The Israeli daily also cited another senior Israeli official who said that the crisis between Egypt and Turkey is one of the factors making it difficult to reconcile with Turkey. Israeli Foreign Ministry Spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon confirmed that Egypt has asked for clarifications from Israel regarding any progress in talks with Turkey. "In the framework of our dialogue with Egypt, there is also some talk about Turkey. Egypt wished to know where things stand," he said.

Bilateral relations were dramatically soured when a second flotilla organized by the international Free Gaza Movement and Turkish nongovernmental organization Humanitarian Relief Foundation (IHH), known as the Gaza Freedom Flotilla, was raided by Israeli forces in international waters in 2010. Ten people were killed, and 55 were wounded in the attack on the flotilla's main ship, the Mavi Marmara. Since then, efforts to reestablish relations between Turkey and Israel continue, yet Ankara insists that all of its conditions must be met, including ending the Gaza blockade and compensation for the slain Turkish activists in the Mavi Marmara raid. The only condition that Israel has met was Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's apology for the raid in 2013.

Presidential spokesperson İbrahim Kalın recently said at a press conference in Ankara that Israel must meet Ankara's three conditions to normalize relations between the two countries and that Turkey will not take a step back regarding the Palestinian cause in talks with Israel. "Turkey will continue to play its role until a two-state solution is reached, and the Palestinian people have their own state. Permanent peace cannot be achieved in the region without resolving the Palestinian issue," Kalın said.