Turkey and Israel a Saga of (Former) Regional Allies

Sylvia Tiryaki and Can Yirik wrote an article on the latest developments in the Israel-Turkey relations. The analysis was published in the Istanbul based Today’s Zaman. You can read it online here.

Intro

Turkey and Israel: two traditional regional allies. Two countries with different backgrounds but also with many similarities that led to a long association with each other. Two business partners whose bilateral trade volume increased under the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government by 145 percent and reached $4 billion.Is the saga of a relatively happy coexistence of the only two functional democracies with secular political structures in the region over? Can this already very strained relationship survive after the Israeli raid on the Free Gaza Movement’s flotilla of six ships that led to the killing of Turkish citizens by Israeli naval commandos? How has it happened that by expressing its willingness to mediate in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict Turkey became a sort of party to the conflict? How far can Israel go with its far-fetched assertiveness? What will happen next? These and others are the questions that puzzle many minds.