Israel Appoints Ambassador to Turkey

Tel Aviv, MINA – Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid said Israel had appointed its new ambassador to Turkey, Irit Lillian.

“This is another important step in improving relations with Turkey that we have been working on for the past year,” Lapid wrote on Twitter. MEMO reported on Monday.

Lillian will be the first Israeli ambassador in Ankara since 2018, having served as Charge d’Affaires of the Israeli Embassy for the past two years. Prior to that as Israeli Ambassador to Bulgaria from 2015 to 2019.

Israeli-Turkish relations have been severed several times over the past decade due to Israel’s repeated aggression against Palestine and the Islamic holy sites in occupied Jerusalem.

The two countries each expelled their ambassadors in 2018 for the killing of sixty Palestinians by Israeli forces during protests at Gaza’s eastern fence against the relocation of the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to occupied Jerusalem.

However, the relationship began to improve in recent months. In August, Turkey and Israel agreed to restore full diplomatic relations and reappoint the ambassador and consul general.

Last month, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan met with Lapid on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York in the first face-to-face talks at that level since 2008. (T/RE1)

Mi’raj News Agency (MINA)