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[edit] Overview
Turkey was the first Muslim-majority nation to formally recognize the State of Israel [1].Israel has been a major supplier of arms to Turkey. Military, strategic, and diplomatic cooperation between Turkey and Israel is accorded high priority by the governments of both countries, which share concerns with respect to the regional instabilities in the Middle East [2] [3] [4].
[edit] History
The history of the Jewish-Turkish relations dates back to the Ottoman Empire when the British-Jewish Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Benjamin Disraeli advocated for the Ottoman empire. Turkey served as a haven for European Jews refuge fleeing Nazi persecution during the 1930s and 1940s. Major Jewish figures were born in Turkey [5].
- See also: History of the Jews in Turkey
[edit] Economic relations
The Israeli and Turkish navies have conducted joint exercises. There is a plan to build a massive pipeline from Turkey to supply water, electricity, gas and oil to Israel [6]. In 2000, Israel and Turkey signed a free-trade agreement [7].
[edit] Strategic cooperation
It has been reported that the Israeli Mossad played a major role in the capture of the Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan in 1996 [8]. In the beginning of 2006, the Israeli foreign ministry characterized its relations with Turkey as "perfect". However, in February 2006, a visit paid by Khaled Meshal, a leader of the newly elected Hamas, changed this status. Israeli diplomats went so far as to compare this visit to a possible official visit of Abdullah Öcalan (the imprisoned PKK leader) to Israel, but Turkish authorities immediately denounced this comparison as "irresponsible and erroneous". After Khaled Meshal paid an official visit to Russia, Turkish-Israeli relations entered a "cooling down" process. Some have suggested that this was only an public relations stunt to show the Islamic world that Turkey was on their side because Turkey had been silent in major issues important to Arabs and the Islamic community like the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and the Lebanon crisis [9]. Israel has even advocated that Turkey make up a majority of peace keepers in Lebanon because it has said that it does not trust troops from other Islamic countries like Bangladesh and Malaysia [10].
[edit] Timeline
[edit] References
[edit] See also
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