Senior Israeli official to visit Turkey after deadly terror act in Istanbul

Serkan Demirtaş ANKARA

Dore Gold

A senior Israeli official is scheduled to pay a rare visit to Turkey on March 20 after a suicide bomb attack killed three Israeli citizens and wounded another three in the touristic center of Istanbul’s Beyoğlu district.

Dore Gold, general director of the Israeli Foreign Ministry, will arrive in Istanbul on March 20 after cutting short a trip to the United States, sources from the Israeli Embassy to Ankara told the Hürriyet Daily News.

Gold’s visit will mark the first high-level diplomatic visit from Israel to Turkey since the two countries’ relations were soured by the Mavi Marmara crisis in 2010.

After visiting wounded Israeli citizens in hospital, Gold will meet with high-level Turkish officials, sources said, without specifying with whom the Israeli diplomat will hold talks. 

Gold and his Turkish counterpart, Foreign Ministry Undersecretary Feridun Sinirlioğlu, met in June and December 2015 to find ways to reconcile ties and to normalize diplomatic relations by appointing respective ambassadors.

Embassy sources hailed the ongoing collaboration with the Turkish officials in the aftermath of the attack that killed five people on Beyoğlu’s İstiklal Avenue.