Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan received Israel’s foreign minister on Tuesday in Ankara, where Eli Cohen expressed Jerusalem’s support for the victims of last week's earthquakes.
The last such meeting took place five months ago, when then-Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Yair Lapid met with Erdogan in New York, at the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. Israel's new ambassador to Turkey Irit Lillian presented her credentials to Erdogan Dec. 27, officially ending more than a decade of sour bilateral relations. Relations started deteriorating in 2010 after the Mavi Marmara flotilla to Gaza, where nine Turkish nationals were killed by IDF fire, and continued deteriorating over Erdogan's pro-Palestinian anti-Israel stances. That has changed some two years ago, leading to reconciliation between Ankara and Jerusalem.
