Israeli president’s call with Erdogan may go beyond detainees’ release
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s friendly chat with his Israeli counterpart Isaac Herzog could be signal that he is ready to turn a page in Turkey’s strained ties with Israel.
Natali and Mordi Oknin, detained by Turkish police Nov. 9 for photographing a presidential residence. in Istanbul, arrived back to Israel Nov. 18. But the road to their release and bringing them home was nothing short of a saga.
Senior Israeli Foreign Ministry officials spent several anxious hours on the night of Nov. 17-18. Although relieved that the Israeli couple had been released, they had no idea where the two had been taken. “We tried to get to them as fast as possible, but we failed,” a senior Israeli diplomatic source told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity. “We were told they had been taken to a police station, but Istanbul has dozens of police stations.”
The Israeli diplomats found themselves racing around the city to different police stations trying to locate the Oknins, whose highly publicized detention had turned the husband-and-wife bus drivers on a visit to Turkey into instant folk heroes and freedom fighters back home.
With Israelis riveted by the story and the family’s teary interviews, what threatened to turn into a modern-day Dreyfus affair had a happy end. The two were found safe and sound, driven to the airport and flown on a private jet sent by the Israeli government to Ben-Gurion International Airport, where a euphoric, tearful welcome awaited them. The scene was reminiscent of previous returns home by Israelis imprisoned abroad.
