President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday that Turkey would like to have better ties with Israel, but criticised Israeli policy toward Palestinians as \u201cunacceptable\u201d and a \u201cred line\u201d for Ankara, adding that intelligence talks resumed between the two sides.
The two countries have had a bitter falling out in recent years, despite strong commercial ties, expelling ambassadors in 2018. Ankara has repeatedly condemned Israel\u2019s occupation in the West Bank and its treatment of Palestinians.
Speaking to reporters after Friday prayers in Istanbul, Erdogan said Turkey had issues with \u201cpeople at the top level\u201d in Israel and that ties could have been \u201cvery different\u201d if it were not for those issues.
\u201cThe Palestine policy is our red line. It is impossible for us to accept Israel\u2019s Palestine policies. Their merciless acts there are unacceptable,\u201d Erdogan said.
\u201cIf there were no issues at the top level, our ties could have been very different,\u201d he added. \u201cWe would like to bring our ties to a better point.\u201d
Turkey and Israel, former allies, expelled each other\u2019s top diplomats in 2018 over clashes when dozens of Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces on the Gaza border. Ankara and Tel Aviv continue to trade with one another.
In August, Israel accused Turkey of giving passports to a dozen Hamas members in Istanbul, describing the move as \u201ca very unfriendly step\u201d, which his government would raise with Turkish officials.
Hamas seized Gaza from forces loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in 2007, and the group has fought three wars with Israel since then. Turkey says Hamas is a legitimate political movement that was elected democratically.
Israel, which has formalised ties with four Muslim countries this year, said on Wednesday it was working towards normalising ties with a fifth Muslim nation, possibly in Asia. Tunisia said on Tuesday it did not intend to normalise ties.
Ankara has slammed the US-brokered rapprochements between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco, with Erdogan previously threatening to suspend diplomatic ties with the UAE and withdraw its envoy. It also slammed Bahrain\u2019s decision to formalise ties as a blow to efforts to defend the Palestinian cause.
Palestinians have censured the US-brokered deals, seeing a betrayal of a long-standing demand that Israel first meet their statehood demand. Egypt and Israel established full relations in 1979 and Jordan in 1994.
Israel will hold a snap election in March after parliament failed on Tuesday to meet a deadline to pass a budget.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday that Turkey would like to have better ties with Israel<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":11680,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11679","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-c59-islamic-world"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n