Erdogan Meets with «Israeli» Diplomat

Local Editor

In the most recent act of normalization with the apartheid "Israeli" regime, Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday shook the hand of an "Israeli" diplomatic official for the first time.

The incident id the first since Tel Aviv and Ankara agreed on a reconciliation deal in June. The meeting was the first of its kind in two years.

Erdogan met and shook hands with Shani Cooper, the diplomatic attaché to the "Israeli" mission in Ankara, during a reception with diplomats to mark Turkey's Victory Day, a celebration of the nation's independence.

In a sign of the warming relations between the "Israeli" regime and Turkey following the reconciliation deal, the photo was released to the press by the office of the Turkish Presidency.

Erdogan's last meeting with an "Israeli" official took place at the same event two years earlier, when it was widely reported that he met with Yosef Levi Sfari, the charge d'affaires of the "Israeli" entity's embassy in Ankara at the time. That meeting was the first in six years, and no photo was released on that occasion.

The latest meeting came a day before the Turkish president ratified the "Israel"-Turkey pact agreed to in June.

His country's parliament voted to approve the pact earlier this month before it closed for a summer recess.

Relations between the former allies deteriorated with the rise of Erdogan's AKP to power, then broke off almost completely in 2010 following an "Israeli" naval raid on a Turkish flotilla trying to breach the entity's blockade of the Gaza Strip in an effort to transport humanitarian aid.

The raid, in which the "Israeli" Occupation Forces [IOF] commandos attacked activists on board, left 10 Turks dead and several soldiers wounded.

Under the terms of the reconciliation agreement, the "Israeli" entity will pay a "lump sum" of $20 million in compensation to the victims within 25 days.

Individual "Israeli" settlers also would not be held criminally or financially liable for the incident.

Turkey and the "Israeli" entity will now begin the process of exchanging ambassadors to fully restore their diplomatic ties.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team