Turkey Appoints New Ambassador to Israel

Kemal Ökem, chief adviser on foreign policy to the prime minister, will be Turkey's first ambassador to Israel after a six-year split, according to state-run Anadolu Agency.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on November 15 officially named Kemal Ökem as the new ambassador to Israel. The announcement came a day after Jerusalem named Eitan Na'eh as Israel's new envoy to Turkey, the first since diplomatic relations were downgraded in 2011.

Media reports had identified Ökem, a foreign policy expert and close confidant of Erdoğan, in October, but Ankara waited to make it official after Israel delayed appointing its ambassador, due to a reshuffle in the Foreign Ministry leadership.

"We are appointing our Prime Minister's [Binali Yıldırım] foreign affairs adviser Mr Kemal Ökem as ambassador [to Israel]," Erdogan said before leaving on a trip to Pakistan.

The naming of ambassadors is the final stage of an agreement signed in the summer to end the breakdown in relations sparked by the killing by Israeli forces of nine Turkish nationals and one Turkish-American in a melee aboard the Mavi Marmara ship in 2010, when Israeli commandos were met with violent resistance from a mob, some of whom were wielding knives and clubs, according to Times of Israel.

The ship was sailing toward Gaza to break an Israeli and Egyptian blockade of the Hamas-run territory, imposed to prevent Hamas importing weaponry, and was commandeered after it refused to turn back.

After the two sides signed a reconciliation agreement this year, Israel paid USD 20 M into a fund set up by Ankara from which compensation will be paid to the families of the Turkish nationals killed when Israel raided the ship the Mavi Marmara. Turkey ratified the agreement with a...