Karel Valansi'nin kaleminden...

Acting Head of Post of the Consulate General of Israel in Istanbul, Ehud Moshe Eitam started his position in March 2019 in a very delicate time not just for Turkish-Israeli relations but also due to the pandemic. Once close allies, relations between Israel and Turkey have been strained for over a decade following the Cast Lead Operation in December 2008. Diplomatic relations were restored in 2016, but two years later, Turkey recalled its ambassador and asked Israel´s to leave in protest of Israel´s response to rioting on the Gaza border. Only after the historic visit of Israel´s President Isaac Herzog to Ankara in March 2022 did the two sides announce that they would be restoring full diplomatic ties, which picked up pace in 2022. Eitam witnessed the improvement of bilateral relations, which in the end reached the long waited normalization. We talked with him about the difficulties and opportunities encountered working in Turkey, the future of Turkish-Israeli relations, and his plans f...

Just this week US, UK, and French forces launched strikes against three sites associated with chemical weapon capabilities in Syria. Meanwhile Hamas embarked on a series of protests called March of Return and this led to the rise of tension between Israel and Turkey as Erdoğan and Netanyahu traded verbal blows over Gaza. This week we host Mr. Yosef Levi-Sfari, the Consul General of Israel in Istanbul. In this first interview to the Turkish press since his appointment, we discussed Turkish-Israeli relations, and the developments in the Middle East. Exclusive interview with the new consul general of Israel in Istanbul You are appointed as consul general to Istanbul in a very sensitive time. How can you define Turkish-Israeli relations today? I think we are in a sensitive situation in the relation between Israel and Turkey for very long time. The reasons change but the type of relations are more or less the same. There were and still are a lot of common interests between our countri...