The Foreign Ministry announced Monday the appointment of Irit Lillian as Israel's new ambassador to Turkey, in the latest evidence of a rapprochement between the nations following a decade-long-plus rift.
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Lillian, who for the last two years has been in charge of the Israeli Embassy in Ankara, is the first person to hold the post since 2018 – when Turkey expelled Israel's envoy and withdrew its own ambassador from Jerusalem amid fighting between the IDF and Palestinians along the Gaza border.
Once-warm relations between Jerusalem and Ankara deteriorated rapidly following the rise to power of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is known to support the Hamas terror organization.
Ties reached a nadir in the wake of the 2010 Mavi Marmara incident, in which nine Turkish nationals were killed in clashes after Israeli commandos were attacked when boarding a ship sent by an Islamist organization deemed close to Erdogan that was attempting to break the maritime blockade on Gaza.
In a sign of thawing relations, President Isaac Herzog visited Turkey in March to meet with Erdogan.
In August, the two countries announced the restoration of full diplomatic relations, with Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid saying at the time that, "Upgrading relations will contribute to deepening ties between the two peoples, expanding economic, trade and cultural ties, and strengthening regional stability."
Lapid is scheduled to meet with Erdogan this week on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York.
Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.
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