Hopes that Turkey and Israel would normalize ties after more than a five-year diplomatic spat will help accelerate progress in talks for a potentially multi-billion dollar project to carry Israeli natural gas to Turkey, officials familiar with the issue said on Friday.
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Ankara also would bar a top Hamas militant from entering the country to deter him from planning attacks against Israel from Turkish soil.
Israeli officials largely welcomed the deal, but said Israel should stick to its guns when it comes to security and limiting of activity of some members of the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas living in Turkey.
Israeli officials said late on Thursday a deal to normalize ties came after high-level bilateral talks in Switzerland.
He added that an outline and framework for the reconciliation agreement exists, but finalization of the agreement will take more time and additional meetings.
Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdogan said last Sunday that the “normalisation process” between Israel and Turkey “would be good for us, Israel, Palestine and the entire region”.
A US official familiar with the agreement confirmed the details. Israel and Turkey had been firm allies until the deadly raid on the aid flotilla, which had been trying to break Israel’s blockade of Gaza.
Following the Mavi Marmara raid, Turkey and Israel withdrew their ambassadors and ended their joint military exercises, although trade and tourism continued at about the same levels.
“Israeli gas could be a serious game changer while Turkey is having problems with its biggest gas supplier Russian Federation”, said Ozgur Altug, chief economist of BGC partners in Istanbul.
Zorlu Enerji, a consortium of Turcas and Enerjisa, Çalık Holding and Enka are the Turkish firms who have reportedly been carrying out talks with their Israeli counterparts on a pipeline to carry Leviathan gas. The attack on the Mavi Marmara was captured by dramatic video that showed Israeli commandos rappelling down to the deck from helicopters as some activists tried to fight back.
Israel extended a formal apology to Turkey and after that negotiations on compensation began in 2013.
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Zorlu has a 25 percent stake in the Dorad natural gas combined-cycle plant in Israel, which started operation in May a year ago, according to its 2014 annual report.
