Turkey Upgrades Palestinian Ties
Although Turkey’s consul general in Jerusalem will present his letter of accreditation to Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas, Turkish diplomatic sources insist that Turkey is not “appointing an ambassador to Palestine,” writes Tulin Daloglu.
After the Palestinian Ma’an News Agency broke the news on Tuesday, March 5, that Sakir Ozkan Torunlar, Turkey’s consul general in Jerusalem, will be accredited as Turkey’s ambassador to the Palestinian Authority, it became obvious that for the foreseeable future it will not be possible to speak of any kind of normalcy in Turkish-Israeli relations.
Two days after Ma’an's reporting, it looks like Ankara might steathily be trying to backtrack. Turkish diplomatic sources have told Al-Monitor that there has been no official appointment of an ambassador to Palestine, but at the same time they stressed that since the UN General Assembly decided on Nov. 29, 2012, to recognize the “State of Palestine,” having representation to Palestine would be a natural step to take. They insist that there is no reason to look for any deeper meaning, such as Turkey taking the opportunity to taunt Israel.
Ofra Bengio of Tel Aviv University, an expert on the Turkish-Israeli relationship, disagreed. “This is for public consumption,” she said. “It is meant to show that while there is no Turkish ambassador to Israel, Turkey is appointing an ambassador to Palestine. So everybody sees what kind of big changes are taking place in Turkey.”
In May 2010, following the Mavi Marmara incident, Turkey downgraded its representation to second secretary at the embassy in Tel Aviv. Israel kept its ambassador in Ankara after Turkey’s downgrade, but an Israeli ambassador has not been resident in Ankara since Gaby Levy left in summer 2010.
