President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid met on Tuesday on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly at the Turkish House (Türkevi) in New York in the first face-to-face talks since 2008.
Israel-Türkiye relations, long-frosty amid feuding over the Palestinian cause, have warmed in recent months, with energy emerging as a key area of cooperation. The countries recently announced the restoration of diplomatic ties following years of tensions.
As well as discussing energy, Lapid thanked Erdoğan for the countries' intelligence sharing and noted Israel's demand for the return of four of its citizens – two of them soldiers – missing in the Gaza Strip since a 2014 war, Lapid's office said.
“We discussed the promotion of relations between the countries after many years of crisis. We also discussed the fight against terrorism in Israel in general, and the deepening of cooperation between Israel and Türkiye in the fields of economy and energy and the deepening of regional processes,” Lapid tweeted.
Türkiye in 1949 became the first Muslim-majority nation to recognize Israel.
But relations soured due to the 2010 killing of 10 Turkish activists in brawls that erupted when Israeli marines stormed a ship trying to break Israel's naval blockade on Gaza.
The two countries expelled ambassadors in 2018 over the killing of 60 Palestinians by Israeli forces during protests on the Gaza border against the opening of the U.S. Embassy in West Jerusalem.
In his address to the U.N. General Assembly, Erdoğan renewed calls for the establishment of a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital.
But he also said that Türkiye was "determined to continue to develop our relations with Israel for the sake of the future, peace and stability of not only the region, but also of Israel, the Palestinian people and ours."
Erdoğan in recent months has also moved to reconcile with regional rivals including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
Meanwhile, Israel on Monday announced the Israeli charge d'affaires in Ankara, Irit Lillian, as the new ambassador to Türkiye.
In May, Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu became the first Turkish foreign minister to visit Israel in 15 years.
A visit to Türkiye by Israeli President Isaac Herzog in March, followed by visits by both foreign ministers, helped warm relations after more than a decade of tensions.
Erdoğan described the fence-mending visit to Ankara by Herzog in March as "a turning point in our relations."
