President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan received Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Tuesday, the first meeting between the two since Netanyahu assumed office in 2022. It was also a rare get-together for administrative officials of the two countries whose relations deteriorated swiftly in the past decades over several issues.
Netanyahu and Erdoğan were in New York to attend the United Nations General Assembly and their meeting took place in the Turkish House (Türkevi) in the city, which also hosts Turkish diplomatic missions.
The leaders agreed to visit each other's countries soon, a statement from Netanyahu's office said. Israel's top-rated Channel 12 TV said Erdoğan may seek to mark the 100th anniversary of the Turkish republic next month with a pilgrimage to a major Jerusalem mosque.
There was no formal confirmation of the report.
Relations between Türkiye and Israel, former allies, crashed after Israel's forces killed 10 Turks in a 2010 raid on a pro-Palestinian activist ship that tried to breach its blockade on the Gaza Strip. Ankara expelled Israel's ambassador, a move reversed in 2016 but repeated two years later over the killing of dozens of Palestinians at the Gaza border. Israel reciprocally expelled Türkiye's envoy in 2018.
A visit to Türkiye by Israeli President Isaac Herzog in March 2022, followed by visits by both foreign ministers, helped the thaw.
Netanyahu himself was scheduled to visit Türkiye in July but a surgery he underwent led to the postponement of the visit. His predecessor Yair Lapid met Erdoğan last year, again, on the sidelines of the U.N. summit in New York.
Erdoğan and Netanyahu discussed political, economic and regional topics and the Israeli-Palestinian issue, the Turkish Presidency said in a post on social media platform X. The Turkish president told Netanyahu that the two countries can cooperate on energy, technology, innovation, artificial intelligence and cybersecurity, the Presidency said. Energy has emerged as a main area for potential cooperation.
"In the meeting, opportunities for energy cooperation primarily in areas like natural gas exploration, production and trade were discussed," said Turkish Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar, who also participated in the meeting.
Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, Justice and Development Party (AK Party) spokesperson Ömer Çelik, National Intelligence Organization (MIT) Director Ibrahim Kalın, Communications Director Fahrettin Altun and the chief advisor on foreign policy and security to the president, Akif Çağatay Kılıç, were also present at the meeting.
After the meeting, Erdoğan said on X that he hopes their talks will "be beneficial for our country and our region."
