 Next to these rarely flags have moved me and reflected more than anything the great privilege to which we received to lay the renewed foundations for important relations between nations and establishing ties of good neighborhood that are vital to all of us at this time. I am certain that you as well Mr. Ambassador felt similar emotions when you saw the flag of the state of Turkey and here in Israel. It is no secret that the state of Israel and myself in particular called great importance to the historic relationship between Israel and Turkey. These are ties that have known crisis before but are now at an encouraging trend. Israel and Turkey can and need to cooperate on many fields that will bring progress and growth to both nations and both countries. We must deepen and broaden the corporations and a wide range of fields including tourism, energy, science, culture, agriculture and many others so that they will bring a value to our people and less than that to our region. President Erdogan has stressed both in his conversations with me and publicly the value of the relations between Israel and Turkey and I wish this opportunity as the president of the state of Israel to invite the Turkish president to Israel which I am certain will contribute to the relations in this opportunity. I will mention that the policy of Turkey and the influence of Turkey is seen when it comes to your efforts to solving significant problems related to the war in Ukraine, to exchange of prisoners and to the export of grain and many other fields. Distinguished ambassador you are returning to a place that is no stranger to you. A decade after serving your country as the general council in Jerusalem you continue to contribute to the relations and cooperation between the countries. The letter I received from you moments ago is a continuous effort to that of the what has happened in Turkey a few weeks ago when Mrs. Yeritelyan has also submitted her letter to President Erdogan. I am certain that we will all continue to operate to strengthen the ties between the countries when we will operate while with mutual respect for promising future for our people and for our region. My great team is at your service. Good luck to you honorable ambassador. Good luck to all of us. And with me here in studio paraphrasing the remarks of the new Turkish envoy is Eitan Koyn Yanarovic, Turkey expert at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security. Let's take a listen. Thank you very much for accepting me. Thank you very much for giving this opportunity to me for addressing the audience. Approximately ten months ago you paid a visit to Ankara and you addressed the public when you visited the Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan. You stressed the historical ties between the two nations and you emphasized that you would like to improve the relations between the two countries further. Also our president stressed the importance and the mutual interests between the two nations that we would like to revive the political dialogue between the two nations. This is our mutual target. Also you mentioned the relations that should be based on mutual respect. Also we are facing mutual challenges and these challenges will strengthen both of the nations. This cooperation will be based on mutual cooperation. I believe that we will continue to collaborate in the future. After your visit we continued to strengthen the bilateral relations with visits on ministerial levels. After four years we seen the nomination of ambassadors both to Ankara and Tel Aviv. Before coming here I also spoke with Irrit Lilian, Israel's ambassador to Turkey. I also spoke with the Turkish president. We are all we are we all would like to dedicate ourselves to strengthen the relations. We all agreed that we are going to implement all of our responsibilities, fulfill our responsibilities to carry on. Mr. President Turkey and Israel are neighbors in the Eastern Mediterranean and for centuries the people of this region they were they lived together they were not only in during the Ottoman Empire also during the Turkish Republic the Jews lived peacefully in the Republic of Republic of Turkey they became an integral part of the Turkish society they contribute to our society the most important bridge for the two nations are the Turkish Jews who live in Israel the first state that recognized the set of Israel in the region was Turkey and now we are going to mark the 17th year of our bilateral relations dear Mr. President Turkey and Turks never took part in an alliance that it is against Jewry or the state of Israel our states are in the same line in the war against terrorism during the last year we all condemned the terrorist attacks against the Israelis that took last year that took place last year our our approach will not is not subject to change in the same manner we believe that Israel will reframe damaging Turkey's interests we would like to concentrate on the topics that are constructive to our bilateral relations and that is the that is how good-neighborhood relations good-neighbor relations can be formed before coming to Tel Aviv I visited our minister and also the head of the parliament and also our president we I received the will of our president that the bilateral relations should be strengthened I came to Israel with this firm support in tourism energy science technology and defense sector these are the main topics that we can collaborate together while coping with the challenges of today we believe that our businessmen can launch joint projects and I do observe that our businessmen can cooperate together dear Mr. President unfortunately the the negative behaviors of the human beings do not change during the centuries the last one the technology during the last century we have witnessed that anti-semitism was an important was important incident but unfortunately we do see even today anti-semitism is still can be considered as a main problem for the whole humanity we also see that xenophobia and Islamophobia are also increasing with this opportunity we believe that Israeli leadership we believe we think that it is very important that the Israeli leadership is committed to protect the status quo of the holy places in Jerusalem dear Mr. President last year we broke a record we we hosted many Israeli tourists also the Israeli airplane company aviation companies Turkey also thanks to the Israeli aviation companies Turkey will become the most important tourism destination for the Israeli tourists also the bilateral trade increased to the ten billion dollars this trade may reach to 15 billion dollars soon during my post I will contribute and I will contribute to the relations and I will collaborate with the new Israeli government that was formed two weeks ago dear Mr. President Republic of Turkey with all with all of the jurisdictional powers that I believe that I will be supported by all of the Israeli institutions when I'm fulfilling my job here in Israel this last six weeks they I mean I saw that Israeli officials are collaborating with me before finishing my words thank you very much once again to address the press and I would like to also thank on behalf of my wife and my friends thank you very much for hosting me here and those were statements by Israeli president Isaac Herzog and the new Turkish ambassador to Israel marking the first time since the restoration of full diplomatic relations with Turkey Sakil Oskar will be the new ambassador representing Ankara in Israel the veteran diplomat served as the former Turkish ambassador to the Palestinians it's been four years since the last Turkish envoy appointed by Ankara left Turkey expelled Israel's ambassador and withdrew its own in 2018 after the United States opened its embassy in Jerusalem and joining me here now in studio is Dr. Hay Eitan Koyan Yenna Djokaj Turkey expert at the Jerusalem Institute for strategy and security and I 24 news defense correspondent Jonathan Regev thank you both for joining me thank you I want to get your first impressions on the speech we'll start with you doctor thank you I think that it's a very positive move once again that we have seen president I mean Ambassador Torunar who was here in Israel before and now appointed as the new Turkish ambassador and as we can all have this impression that he is very positive he also mentioned that there is a room for further improvement in the relations also in energy sector tourism bilateral trade so I think that's a good start and what I what I saw today and also what I saw last week in the Turkish presidential palace that the Israeli ambassador was also welcomed very warmly by the Turkish president I think these are very good steps that would build mutual trust between the two nations if the civil societies in the two countries will be also included in this equation and I believe that the sky is the limit and for instance the universities and business circles tourism even the sports maybe some friendly games could be arranged not only between the basketball teams but also between the soccer teams that will basically touch to the masses and I believe that again sky is the limits today is a very positive day very bright day for the future of the relations absolutely and Jonathan he mentioned also some security coordination do we expect that also to extend to Iran and not so sure let's remember and yes relations are now improving and there's an Israeli ambassador in Ankara and the Turkish ambassador here in Tel Aviv not in Jerusalem this is not very important for for the ambassador to stress that but it's not as if the policy or the sympathy of President Erdogan has changed he supports Hamas and will always support Hamas but it's a question of interest and it's the interest of Turkey of the fermenting better relations with Israel the economic situation in Turkey is currently far from what it was at 10 years ago and and therefore at least when it comes to business and commerce a cooperation there we will be seen quite a lot security I'm not so sure having said all that when there were threats coming from alleged Iranian Iranian spies and agents back in the summer there was very strong cooperation between the Israeli Israeli security services and Turkish ones thwarting those those threats so on on on levels such as this one when there's threats to Israelis in Turkey for example I think the answer to that to that to your question in that regard is yes you mentioned the change in Israel and Turkey's relationship I want to ask you a doctor what has changed now because the issues on the ground have they changed not really in my opinion what has changed was the survival of the Abraham Accords the Turks I think that they believe that after the departure of the president Donald Trump from the White House they thought that the Abraham Accords would collapse and eventually what they saw was the exact opposite we have all witnessed here do the first negative summit nowadays we are all witnessing it in the second negative summit in Abu Dhabi so what we have what we are seeing here a regional pact that is that it is composed of moderate moderate actors in the region United Arab Emirates Bahrain Morocco Egypt so Turkey understood that that if it is not going to make this positive step that this mending the fences with the Abraham Accords countries then it would be an outsider in the Middle East let us look at the you know at a glance at the Turkish foreign policy they during the last year they not only did normalize their relations relations with Israel but also they mended their fences with the United Arab Emirates with Egypt with Kingdom of Saudi Arabia what is the common denominator of all these states of course they are the members of the Abraham Accords access countries so I believe that this is the game and let us also not forget the deterioration of the Turkish economy the devaluation of the Turkish lira they gravely need foreign investment and the Gulf countries especially the UAE could provide this hot money into the Turkish market and we all see that this is happening right now before the Turkish elections Erdogan needs this money and speaking of Erdogan my next question is is Erdogan really a political ally of Netanyahu I mean can you be trusting and to a certain extent they share a common interest allies I think allies is a word that is a bit too big and but there's a common interest Israel clearly wants to have good relations with Turkey Turkey with all the problems that were mentioned here Turkey still a regional powerhouse one that should that should always be taken into into account a bridge between East and West a bridge between Europe and Asia and this is something that is very important for Israel to have strong ties I think Erdogan and likes Benjamin Netanyahu now just as much as he did 10 years ago but Benjamin Netanyahu could be perhaps the route to the UAE a very important regional player so does this mean that he sees Israel and Netanyahu as an ally probably no but but is this something that plays into the interest of Erdogan probably yes and you spoke about common allies and one of them is Putin but can the two countries play the same role when it comes to Ukraine Turkey has managed to stay quote-unquote neutral while at the same time supplying weapons to Ukraine can Israel do the same thing this is probably what is happening now let's remember Israel and Israel and Turkey do not share a border but they do share a border with Russia in Syria because at the end who who runs business in in Syria eventually it's Russia Russia's one running things there we only heard this week of the pact again to supply a Syria with humanitarian aid coming through Turkey and backed by Russia so Russia is Turkey is clearly taking an interest in the Russian views when it comes to assistance to Syria through its border Israel of course relies on Russia to continue its alleged Israeli strikes everybody knows that it's Israel behind it but Israel usually does not take our responsibility for these strikes but again both Turkey and Israel rely on Russian acceptance assistance when it comes to their operations in Syria which are very important both for Turkey and for Israel both sharing a border with Syria I agree with you but I also would like to make another point compared to Israel Turkey has other leverages vis-à-vis Russia for instance Turkey is controlling the straits you know whenever at Russian warship or a ship they would like to go to the Mediterranean they should pass from the straits this is the first thing the other thing is the pipelines the the Turkish stream and the blue stream pipelines going through Turkey another thing Turkey is you know ignoring the fact that the Russian oligarchs are coming to Turkey you know to protect their money and we are all seeing that like there is a you know money laundering their Turkey is trying not to see this action so Turkey is taking many important steps towards Russia and let us also not forget the air corridor while all of the European states are imposing a flight ban on Russia Turkey became the most important hub for the Russian aviation sector that all of the tourists are coming to Istanbul and from there they are flying towards the West but unfortunately Israel has no such leverages vis-à-vis Russia and I think in this in the sense Turkey's hand is upper gentlemen I want to thank you both very much for joining me here in studio today Dr. Ethan Cohen yeah I know Jack I finally managed to pronounce your name and our defense correspondent Jonathan Reagan thank you about some of you