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Is Turkish-Israeli reconciliation back on track?

The shifting regional picture may be forcing Israel and Turkey to rebuild ties, but only after Turkey’s elections on March 30.
The Turkish-owned cruise liner Mavi Marmara is seen under maintenance at a shipyard in Istanbul April 21, 2013. An Israeli delegation will visit Turkey for the first time in three years in another sign of thawing relations since the U.S. brokered a breakthrough in March, but any further advancement in ties was expected to be incremental. Israel apologised to Turkey over the killing of nine Turks in a 2010 naval raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla, which included the Mavi Marmara, and the two agreed to normalise r
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Following a lull of several weeks, the Turkish-Israeli reconciliation story is back in the news following some new developments and high-level statements. Some suggest that events in Syria in particular and the Middle East in general are acting as a catalyst for the process.

It is seems prudent, however, to keep a pinch of salt around, as this story has seen more than one false start since Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s surprise apology last year for the 2010 raid by Israel commandos on the Turkish aid ship Mavi Marmara as it headed for Gaza. Nine Turks were killed in the raid, sending Turkish-Israeli ties into a nosedive from which they have not yet recovered.

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