ISTANBUL – Israel and Turkey have reached an agreement to repair ties after six years of strained relations over an Israeli raid on a Turkish aid ship to Gaza in 2010, officials said Monday.
“Relations with Israel have normalized,” Turkish prime minister Binali Yildirim said at a news conference in Ankara, Turkey’s capital.
The deal was reached on Sunday in Rome, according to Israeli and Turkish officials, and calls for increased Turkish investment and aid deliveries to the Gaza Strip.
Israel will also provide a “humanitarian fund” of $20 million to family members of the activists killed on the ship, a senior Turkish official said.
The official called the agreement a “diplomatic victory” for Turkey, and said that “representatives of the Palestinian government and Hamas have voiced their support” for the deal.
It has “immense implications for the Israeli economy,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at a press conference with Secretary of State John Kerry in Rome on Monday.
Before the break, Turkey and Israel had close economic and military ties.
The rapprochement between the once-close allies has been driven by both countries’ security concerns as Syria and other Middle Eastern nations fight protracted civil wars.
