Turkey and Israel will complete the process of exchanging ambassadors within one week to 10 days, a key step in a process of normalizing relations between the two countries.
“So we’ll be glad to see Turkish companies involving Israeli energy sector, actually many of them are already involved, and if they will be involved in the exploration of the future gas fields then of course they will be very welcomed.”
The announcement by Turkey on the matter comes as as Israeli Minister of energy Yuval Steinitz, who is on an official visit to Turkey, announced that Jerusalem and Ankara discussed the possibility of building a natural gas pipeline between the two countries. Minister Steinitz agreed during a meeting with his Turkish counterpart Berat Albayrak to “establish immediately dialogue between the two governments” to examine the project’s feasibility.”
“What we decided is to establish immediately a dialogue between our two governments, between our two departments of energy in order to examine the possibility and the feasibility of such a project that will enable us to bring natural gas from the Israeli economic water into Turkey and through Turkey to Europe,” said Steinitz.
Minister Steinitz also took the opportunity to invite Turkish companies to deepen their involvement in Israel’s exploration of additional gas fields.
“So we’ll be glad to see Turkish companies involving Israeli energy sector, actually many of them are already involved, and if they will be involved in the exploration of the future gas fields then of course they will be very welcomed,” added Steinitz.
The meeting of Steinitz and Albayrak is the first Israeli ministerial visit to Turkey since ties were ruptured some six years ago. Minister Steinitz, who is considered to be a close associate of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in his cabinet, said he was a significant proponent of the normalizing ties, and voiced hope that it would benefit both countries significantly.
“I am very happy to be here today. I was a great proponent of the normalization between, normalization of ties and diplomatic relations between Israel and Turkey. And the meeting today is the beginning of the result, it should be also economic result for the benefit of both people, for the benefit of both Turkey and Israel and I believe that this is forthcoming,” concluded Steinitz.