<div style="text-align: justify; "><span style="font-size: 1rem;"><b>Israel will have an ambassador in Turkey for the first time in four years, the latest step in warming relations between the two countries following a years-long rift.</b></span><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Irit Lillian, a senior diplomat who has been in charge of the Israeli embassy in Ankara for the last two years, will serve as the ambassador, Israel’s foreign ministry announced on Monday.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In 2018, Turkey withdrew its ambassador from Israel and ordered Israel’s ambassador to leave in protest at Israel’s killing of dozens of Palestinians in protests along the Gaza border.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Once-warm relations began to deteriorate after the election of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, an outspoken critic of Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians, as prime minister in 2003.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The now Turkish president famously berated ex-Israeli prime minister Shimon Peres while on stage at the World Economic Forum at Davos in 2009.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Tensions peaked in 2010 when Israeli forces stormed a Turkish ship that broke through an Israeli blockade to deliver humanitarian aid to the Hamas-administered Gaza Strip. Nine Turkish activists were killed.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">However, the two countries have in recent years made efforts to put their troubled relationship behind them, as regional alliances shift.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In a step towards rapprochement, Israeli President Isaac Herzog visited Turkey in March to meet with Erdogan.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Turkish foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu was in Jerusalem in late May in what his then counterpart Yair Lapid called a “new chapter” in bilateral ties.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Then, in June, Israel and Turkey officially announced the restoration of full diplomatic relations, including an exchange of ambassadors. Source: Aljazeera</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; ">bnbd24/kh</div>