After more than ten years of "freezing", Israel and Turkey announced on Wednesday August 17 a complete restoration of their ties as well as the return of their ambassadors and general consuls in the two countries.
Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid explained in a statement the "decision to raise the level of ties (with Ankara) to full diplomatic relations", specifying that this resumption "is an important asset for regional stability and a new very important economy.
However, the two countries had been navigating in troubled waters for several years.
In 2010, Israeli forces launched a deadly assault on the Turkish ship "Mavi Marmara" which was trying to deliver aid to the Palestinian enclave of Gaza, under Israeli blockade and controlled by the Islamists of Hamas - who have d elsewhere representatives in Turkey.
Then, in May 2018, after the death of around fifty Palestinians killed by the Israeli army in Gaza, Turkey recalled its ambassador to Israel and fired the Israeli ambassador.
The Jewish state retaliated by sending the Turkish consul general back to Jerusalem.
How to explain then that the two countries are getting closer again?
Why now ?
Decryption by David Rigoulet-Roze, researcher specializing in the Middle East attached to the French Institute for Strategic Analysis (Ifas), associate researcher at the Institute of International and Strategic Relations (Iris) and editor-in-chief of the journal Orients Strategiques .
France 24: Why are Israel and Turkey now restoring their diplomatic relations after more than ten years of "freezing"
?
David Rigoulet-Roze:
It should be noted that today it is more on the initiative of Ankara that the rapprochement is taking place, whereas before it was rather the Jewish state which was proactive in the matter.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan understood that he had to adjust his geopolitical posture by making it less confrontational, if not less aggressive – insofar as this had ultimately been quite largely counterproductive in recent years.
This is the finalization of a process already underway for several months.
In late November 2021, President Erdogan spoke – for the first time since 2013 – with then Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett.
Then there was President Isaac Herzog's visit to Ankara last March, the first such visit since 2007. On May 25, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Cavusoglu also paid a visit to Israel .
Then, in June, we saw a strengthening of relations between the Israeli and Turkish intelligence services, thanks to the revelation of terrorist threats emanating from Iran and targeting Israeli tourists in Turkey.
Yaïr Lapid, then Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs, had also thanked Ankara on this subject.
This significant development has in fact explanatory factors on the Turkish side.
President Erdogan is encountering increased internal difficulties which are pushing him to adopt a less confrontational stance with his neighbours: the legislative and presidential elections in June 2023 promise to be much less easy than before for him, and the economic situation in Turkey is not no stranger to this decline in popularity of the president and his party, the AKP.
High inflation (79.6% in July, editor's note) is logically attributed to the government in power – the policy of the AKP has nevertheless been perceived for decades as a model of economic development – which is forced to attract maximum foreign investment to overcome these economic difficulties.
Hence the resumption of contact, paradoxical in many respects, with the Emirati Mohammed ben Zayed or even with the Saudi Mohammed ben Salman – despite being condemned to public disgrace after the assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
It is therefore a 180 degree turn for Ankara as only the "political animal" Recep Tayyip Erdogan is capable of – who cares little for the consistency of his initial line.
The fact is that economic constraints force it to revise downwards its external geopolitical ambitions.
Is this resumption of relations, for Israel, part of a more global approach to normalizing ties with several neighboring countries
?
It's undeniable, it's the same dynamic.
Except that this is not an Arab country like those concerned by the Abraham Accords and that the dispute over the Palestinian question - and particularly on Gaza - has remained with Ankara since the "Mavi Marmara" affair. in 2010. Restoring relations with Turkey broadens the spectrum of normalization for Israel.
Especially since there is this Iranian question, and we have seen the importance that close relations with Ankara could have precisely to secure the many Israeli tourists visiting Turkey.
This also makes it possible to distance Turkey from Iran, the two being stakeholders, with Russia, of the Astana format (a set of tripartite meetings between different actors in the war in Syria, editor's note).
Ankara has its own agenda, and Israel for its part is fundamentally concerned about the Iranian presence in Syria.
On this issue, the Jewish state may have an interest in getting closer to Turkey to further distance it from Tehran – especially since Iran recently obstructed Ankara, which wanted to intervene militarily against the Kurds in the north. of Syria.
What common interests do the two countries share regarding possible energy cooperation
?
The issue of gas in the Mediterranean had been a major contentious issue since the agreement signed by Turkey with Libya on November 27, 2019, on the maritime delimitations giving it access to drilling areas claimed by Greece and/or or Cyprus – supported by Israel.
However, since January 2022, Israel and Turkey have declared their readiness to cooperate on a gas pipeline project aimed at connecting Israeli fields in the eastern Mediterranean to Turkey in order to then transport this gas windfall to Europe, which has more of it than ever. needed since the disruption of the Russian gas supply.
In this re-establishment of Israel-Turkey relations, there is therefore also the idea that there are potential opportunities for cooperative development.
Finally, what about the persistent dissensions on the Palestinian question
?
The Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mevlüt Cavusoglu, cannot disavow himself in relation to the ambition that Ankara has displayed for several years to support the Palestinian cause.
He also reiterated this explicitly on Wednesday, assuring that Turkey "would not abandon the Palestinian cause" and will continue to "defend the rights of the Palestinians, of Jerusalem and of Gaza".
The Turkish-Qatari axis will therefore continue to be important with regard to the Palestinian question, and it is a point of friction that will remain with Israel.
But this will not be enough to jeopardize the resumption of diplomatic relations.
In the future, Ankara will probably express its disapproval or even its condemnation of the Israeli policy towards Gaza, because it is an integral part of Turkey's traditional position.
But there is a general dynamic on the part of Ankara which consists in revising its external ambitions downwards, because these geopolitical ambitions must be financed.
Which is no longer the case today.
And as Turkey is plunged into a serious economic crisis, this first becomes a domestic political problem for President Erdogan.
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