{"id":3455,"date":"2015-12-17T21:03:29","date_gmt":"2015-12-17T21:03:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/box5917.temp.domains\/~iriacom\/\/news\/?p=3455"},"modified":"2015-12-17T21:03:29","modified_gmt":"2015-12-17T21:03:29","slug":"israel-turkey-reach-an-understanding-to-restore-ties-israeli-official","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/israel-turkey-reach-an-understanding-to-restore-ties-israeli-official\/","title":{"rendered":"Israel, Turkey reach an &#8216;understanding&#8217; to restore ties: Israeli official"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"article-share\">\n<div class=\"share__textsize\">\n<div class=\"share-label\" style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<p>JERUSALEM \u2014\u00a0Israeli and Turkish officials have reached a preliminary understanding to normalize relations, including the return of ambassadors to both countries, an Israeli official confirmed on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>The deal was reached during meeting in Switzerland during a meeting between the incoming head of Israel&#8217;s Mossad intelligence agency, Yossi Cohen, Israeli envoy Joseph Ciechanover and at the Turkish foreign ministry under secretary Feridun Sinirlioglu, the official said, speaking to <span style=\"color: #993300;\"><a style=\"color: #993300;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.haaretz.com\/israel-news\/1.692478\" target=\"_blank\">Haaretz<\/a><\/span> on condition of anonymity.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<div class=\"article-body resizeFont\">\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Although there is no official and immediate comment from Turkey or Israel, but Israeli media reports confirm the meeting including a number of steps planned to normalize relations.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Relations between the two countries broke down in 2010 after an Israeli naval <span style=\"color: #993300;\"><a style=\"color: #993300;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.timesofisrael.com\/liveblog_entry\/in-secret-meeting-israel-and-turkey-agree-to-reestablish-ties\/\" target=\"_blank\">raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla<\/a><\/span> that killed eight Turkish citizens and one Turkish-American. After the incident, Turkey became one of the strongest critics of Israeli actions in Gaza.\u00a0Israel apologized to Turkey for the deaths and agreed to compensate the victims&#8217; families under a U.S.-brokered arrangement in 2013. But efforts to restore ties faltered amid new Israeli action in Gaza.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The Israeli official, who wasn&#8217;t authorized to speak to the media about the diplomatic talks, said the sides agreed that Israel would compensate the families of the flotilla victims.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Turkey would waive legal claims against Israel over the raid and that the countries would upgrade diplomatic ties by returning ambassadors, official claimed. A leader of the Islamic militant group Hamas said to be based in Turkey will be banned from operating from the country.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The agreement follows five years of diplomatic contacts that began following the flotilla incident. &#8220;The agreement has still not been given a final signature and we still have to work on some details, but the crisis is on the way to being resolved,&#8221; the senior Israeli official said.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The official also said talks to lay down a natural <span style=\"color: #993300;\"><a style=\"color: #993300;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.jpost.com\/Israel-News\/Politics-And-Diplomacy\/Israel-and-Turkey-move-closer-to-reconciliation-normalized-relations-437673\" target=\"_blank\">gas pipeline<\/a><\/span> from Israel to Turkey would begin soon.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The reconciliation agreement came just days after Turkey&#8217;s President signaled a possible warming of relations with Israel,s saying that such a move &#8220;<span style=\"color: #993300;\"><a style=\"color: #993300;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.middleeasteye.net\/news\/erdogan-improved-relations-between-turkey-and-israel-good-entire-region-1439156310\" target=\"_blank\">would be good for us, Israel, Palestine and the entire region<\/a><\/span>.&#8221;\u00a0Israeli\u00a0Foreign Ministry, responding to Erdogan&#8217;s remarks, said that &#8220;Israel has always strived for stable relations with Turkey and is constantly examining ways to achieve that goal.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The senior Israeli official noted that the agreement between the two countries <span style=\"color: #993300;\"><a style=\"color: #993300;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.haaretz.com\/israel-news\/1.692478\" target=\"_blank\">includes<\/a><\/span> the following:<\/p>\n<ol style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<li>In the framework of the agreement, Israel will pay Turkey $20 million in compensation, which will be transferred to a special fund that will in turn provide grants to the families of the Turkish citizens who were killed or injured in the Israel Navy&#8217;s takeover of the Mavi Marmara.<\/li>\n<li>Turkey and Israel will renew and normalize their relations and return their respective ambassadors to Tel Aviv and Ankara.<\/li>\n<li>The Turkish parliament will pass a law that will annul all legal claims against Israeli Defense Force officers and soldiers in connection with the flotilla incident and will prevent future claims from being filed.<\/li>\n<li>Turkey will expel Saleh al-Aruri, a senior member of Hamas&#8217; military wing, who is based in Istanbul and is directing terrorist operatives in the West Bank from there. In addition, Hamas activities in Turkey in general will be limited.<\/li>\n<li>Once the final agreement between the two countries has been signed, Turkey and Israel will explore cooperating in the natural gas field \u2013 with Turkey buying gas from Israel&#8217;s offshore oil fields and the laying of a gas pipeline that would run via Turkey and through which Israel would export gas to Europe.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><em><br \/>\nReporting based on Haaretz, JP, TZ, Reuters, Times of Israel<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>JERUSALEM \u2014\u00a0Israeli and Turkish officials have reached a preliminary understanding to normalize relations, including the return of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3456,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[44,1],"tags":[204,208,357,210,26,356,27,82],"class_list":["post-3455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle-east","category-news","tag-crisis","tag-diplomacy","tag-europe","tag-foreign-affairs","tag-israel","tag-middle-east","tag-palestine","tag-turkey"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/israel-turkey.jpg?fit=600%2C322&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7jJWb-TJ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3455","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3455"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3455\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3458,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3455\/revisions\/3458"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}