Egypt: Erdoğan welcome in Gaza
Cairo says ‘doors open wide’ for Turkish leader to visit Strip via Sinai
Gavriel Fiske is a reporter at The Times of Israel
Egypt’s doors are ‘wide open’ for Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to visit the Gaza Strip via Sinai, according to Egyptian Prime Minister Hesham Kandil.
Although he declined to state a definite date, Kandil, in a wide-ranging interview published Monday by Hurriyet Daily News, said that Erdoğan “wants to come to Egypt and to go to Gaza. Of course, he’s going to have a very good experience, because seeing things live is much different from watching it on the news or reading the news. Doors are going to be wide open for him, of course.”
Turkey and Egypt have grown closer since the 2011 Egyptian revolution toppled Hosni Mubarak and the subsequent 2012 election brought an Islamist government to power.
Erdoğan has long stated his desire to visit Gaza and reportedly plans to make the trip on or around May 30, the three-year anniversary of the Mavi Marmara incident, in which nine Turkish citizens were killed when Israeli naval commandos came under attack as they intercepted the ship in its attempt to break Israel’s naval blockade of Gaza.
In April, the Turkish prime minister reportedly refused US Secretary of State John Kerry’s request to again postpone the visit during a meeting between the two leaders in Istanbul. The Turkish leader had postponed his visit from April to May — so that it would take place after a scheduled meeting in Washington in mid-May.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has also asked Erdoğan to delay the visit, saying it could harm relations between the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which is run by the terror group Hamas.
Turkey and Israel once enjoyed close political and military cooperation, but the flotilla incident led Turkey to freeze diplomatic relations. In March, in a phone conversation during the final moments of US President Barack Obama’s visit to Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu apologized to Erdoğan for operational errors made in the raid and promised compensation for the victims and their families.
Netanyahu agreed to ease, but not lift, the blockade of Gaza in return for Ankara dropping the lawsuits — potentially paving the way for reconciliation between the two countries. Last week, Turkish and Israeli officials met in Jerusalem in an effort to finalize compensation for the families of the Turkish citizens killed aboard the Marmara and to re-normalize relations between the two countries.
JTA contributed to this report.
