Elder of Ziyon: Turkey’s foreign trade with Israel keeps growing as its trade with Arab countries shrinks

FOREIGN AFFAIRS
by Kemal Kirisci and Sinan Ekim
May 6, 2015

Hardly a week goes by without some barb or insult traded between Turkey and Israel. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan publicly slights Israel on an almost daily basis to drum up domestic political support, for example asserting that Israel’s treatment of Gaza surpasses the brutality of the Nazi regime. Things weren’t always this way. The 1990s and most of the 2000s saw warm diplomatic and political ties between Israel and Turkey. But these days there seems to be a diplomatic standstill. Even so, despite harsh rhetoric and a suspension of top-level diplomatic engagement, Israeli-Turkish trade has grown by 19 percent since 2009, while Turkey’s overall foreign trade for the same period grew by 11 percent. Since few nations with strong trade ties escalate conflicts to the point of going to war with each other, Israeli-Turkish economic ties may signal the prospects of improved bilateral relations. READ MORE