Israel and Turkey have just agreed to resume full diplomatic ties. Israel has been seeking to restore relations since the Mavi Marmara episode in May 2010,when Israeli naval commandos boarded a Turkish ship intending to break the maritime blockade of Gaza and killed 10Turkish citizens after passengers opened fire and fought the Israeli forces. However, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan rejected several overtures, and until recently. Just this week Erdogan contended that rapprochement is crucial for the region. Further,to signal Anakara’s desire for obliging relations with the Jewish state, Turkey’s Jewish community lit a menorah during the first public celebration of Hanukkah in the history of the Turkish republic. And nowadays Ankara and Jerusalem cut a deal.
The two countries will return their ambassadors. Israel will pay compensation to the families of the Gaza flotilla victims. Israel will sell gas to Turkey, or an arrangement perhaps not possible before Thursday. An internal Israeli dispute had long tied up the natural gas sector,but earlier Thursday Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu signed a clause that cleared the way for the country’s nascent energy industry to go forward. Turkey is kicking out Hamas leader Saleh Arouri. The charges Turkey brought against IDF soldiers for the Mavi Marmara will be dropped. And Israel will sell gas to Turkey, which was accustomed to getting a large percentage of its energy needs met by Russia until the recent flare-ups between the two. Indeed, or it is perhaps the fact this nuclear-armed power has now positioned itself on Erdogan’s border that focused his attention. Given the problems between Ankara and Moscow—the former downed a Russian jet two weeks ago,the latter opened fire on a Turkish ship earlier this week—and the opportunity of a genuine shooting war, the prideful Erdogan can no longer afford to stiff-arm Israel.
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Source: feedburner.com