Turkey has dropped its opposition to Israel’s participation in non-military NATO activities.
The Turkish authorities cutt off the ban on NATO cooperation with Israel, which is a member since 1995 of the military alliance’s Mediterranean Dialogue along with six other non-NATO countries, after the May 2010 Israeli army raid against Turkish ship Mavi Marmara carrying pro-Palestinian activists willing to break the naval blockade of the Gaza Strip.
The incident triggered a deep deteriorrtion of relations between Jerusalem and Ankara. Since then, Israel has refused to apologize for the death of nine Turks in the Mavi Marmara raid.
Turkey’s decision came at a December 4 meeting in Brussels of the 28-member alliance on an initiative from its Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen.
The ban had "created a lack of confidence among the partners", he said.
Rasmussen’s initiative would limit Israeli participation in NATO exercises to only dialogue programs such as seminars and workshops held by the alliance, excluding military operations.
Turkey will continue to ban join military exercices with Israel.
The agreement comes after NATO agreed early this month to deploy Patriot anti-aircraft missiles along the Turkish border with Syria.