Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid is expected to meet Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly this week, in another sign of warming ties between Jerusalem and Ankara.
The PM’s office said Lapid would depart for New York on Monday night, ahead of his address to the 193-member General Assembly on Thursday. Local media reported that the meeting with Erdoğan is slated to take place on Tuesday.
Only last month, Israel and Turkey agreed to restore full diplomatic relations. The two countries recalled their respective ambassadors in 2010 after the Israeli Navy intercepted a flotilla transporting weapons to the Gaza Strip, an incident that resulted in the deaths of nine Turkish nationals. Following an attempt at mending ties, Turkey withdrew its ambassador in 2018 when the United States announced that it would move its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.
The process of rapprochement with Israel started earlier this year. In March, President Isaac Herzog met with Erdoğan in the Turkish capital. Three months ago, then-foreign minister Lapid visited Ankara, after his Turkish counterpart traveled to Jerusalem, the first high-level visit by a Turkish official in 15 years.
This comes as a coalition of Palestinian NGOs sent a letter this week demanding that Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas pressure the UN to ‘withdraw recognition of Israel.’ The letter, signed by multiple groups with documented terror ties, also urged Abbas to call on the international community to impose sanctions on the Jewish state and to repeat his accusations that Israel is an apartheid state.