3 October 2022; MEMO: Israel approved the appointment yesterday of its new ambassador to Turkiye. A tweet from Prime Minister Yair Lapid confirmed the appointment of Irit Lillian and said that "This is another important step in repairing relations with Turkiye that we have been working on for the past year."
The Israeli Foreign Ministry actually approved Lillian's appointment on 19 September. She will be the first Israeli ambassador in Ankara since 2018, where she has served as the Embassy of Israel's Charge d'Affaires for the past two years. She was also Israel's ambassador to Bulgaria from 2015 to 2019.
Israel-Turkiye relations have been cut several times during the past decade due to Israel's repeated aggression against the Palestinians and Islamic holy sites in occupied Jerusalem. The two countries each expelled the other's ambassador in 2018 over the killing of sixty Palestinians by Israeli forces during protests at the eastern Gaza fence against the relocation of the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to occupied Jerusalem.
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However, relations have warmed in recent months. In August, Turkiye and Israel agreed to restore full diplomatic ties and reappoint ambassadors and consul generals.
Last month, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan met with Lapid on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York in the first face-to-face talks at that level since 2008. In his address to the General Assembly, Erdogan renewed calls for the establishment of a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital.
