Posted on 05/24/22
| News Source: i24
First visit to Jewish state by a senior Turkish official in more than a decade
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu landed in Israel on Tuesday for a landmark visit amid warming relations between Jerusalem and Ankara.
The diplomat's two-day visit also includes a stop on Tuesday in Ramallah to meet with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki.
On Wednesday, Çavuşoğlu will meet with Israel's Foreign Minister and Alternate Prime Minister Yair Lapid and Tourism Minister Yoel Razvozov. He is also scheduled to visit Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem.
He will have lunch with the Israeli tourism minister and then visit the Old City of Jerusalem and the Temple Mount.
His decision to visit the Temple Mount unaccompanied, however, is likely to cause some diplomatic unease.
It is the first visit to Israel by a senior Turkish official in more than a decade.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog's visit in March to Ankara and Istanbul to reconnect with his counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdoğan opened a new era in relations, after a decade of tensions.