According to Buzzfeed’s Middle East correspondent, Israel and Turkey have agreed to an accord that would allow aid into the Gaza Strip.
Turkey & Israel reached agreement to normalize bilateral relations on Sunday in Rome, says senior Turkish official. 1/x
— Borzou Daragahi (@borzou) June 26, 2016
Israel met Turkey’s conditions by agreeing to compensate families of Mavi Marmara victims and allow Turkey to aide Gaza, official said. 2/x
— Borzou Daragahi (@borzou) June 26, 2016
Turkey will provide humanitarian aid, make infrastructure investments, build housing and 200-bed hospital in Gaza, official said. 3/x
— Borzou Daragahi (@borzou) June 26, 2016
Agreement will make it possible for Turkey to launch major projects in the West Bank including Jenin industrial zone, official said. 4/x
— Borzou Daragahi (@borzou) June 26, 2016
Deal makes no references to Hamas. Turkey will continue supporting the Palestinian state and the people of Palestine, official said. 5/x
— Borzou Daragahi (@borzou) June 26, 2016
More from the Wall Street Journal:
The push toward agreement came amid security threats to both nations—the Syrian conflict on their borders, the rise of the extremist group Islamic State, and what many regional governments view as Iran’s assertive military and political posture.
The deal won’t end the tight controls Israel imposed on Gaza’s borders in 2007 to hold Hamas militarily in check—a concession Turkey had demanded. But, in a compromise that broke a deadlock in talks, Israeli officials said Turkey would be allowed to send aid to Gaza through the Israeli port of Ashdod and to build a hospital, power plant, desalination facility and other badly needed infrastructure in the war-battered Palestinian enclave.
In addition, the two countries will rebuild military and intelligence ties, which grew close in the 1990s and early 2000s, and send ambassadors back to each other’s capitals, according to an Israeli official briefed on the accord.
That’s pretty historic if you ask me, and hopefully it’ll help quell some of the tension in that region.
How great is Erdogan? Let us all marvel at his works!!! Oh wait…