Signalling a New Era In The Region: Turkish-Israeli Reconciliation

The Turkish-Israeli relationship, a highly controversial bilateral one, with its ups and downs, overall deterioration, and occasional points of tension in the post-2003 period, experienced a major turning point in June 2016. Divergence, tension and crises were the defining characteristics of the relationship for more than a decade whereas the recent normalisation proves to be an important leg of a more holistic transformation in Turkish foreign policy. Following the reconciliation with Israel, the progress made towards normalisation with Russia signals such a change. The primary goals of Turkey with this Realpolitik revision seems to be increasing its regional and international manoeuvrability and limit the impact of regional instability on its own security.