Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan addresses a gathering of judges and lawyers at his palace in Ankara, Turkey, Thursday, Sept. 1, 2016. (Yasin Bulbul, Presidential Press Service, Pool via AP)
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denied Sunday reports that he and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan were set to meet on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York next week.
According to Channel 1 television, a meeting was arranged in covert talks between the two countries in recent weeks, and came after Erdogan last month ratified a June reconciliation deal between Israel and Turkey that was years in the works.
But the Prime Minister’s Office issued a statement on Sunday evening saying no such meeting was planned.
Relations between the former allies deteriorated with Erdogan’s AKP party’s rise to power and Turkish disapproval over Israeli policies in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip. They then broke off almost completely in 2010 following an Israeli naval raid on a Turkish flotilla trying to breach Israel’s blockade of Gaza. The raid, in which IDF commandos were attacked by activists on board, left 10 Turks dead and several soldiers wounded.
Shani Cooper, diplomatic attaché at the Israeli Embassy in Ankara, shakes hands with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at a reception in the Turkish capital on August 30, 2016. (Courtesy of the Turkish presidency)
The Turkish parliament voted last month to approve the pact, under which Israel will pay a “lump sum” of $20 million in compensation to the victims within 25 days. Individual Israeli nationals also would not be held criminally or financially liable for the incident.
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The deal was reached in June, but ratification of the agreement had been delayed by the attempted July 15 military coup against Erdogan.
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