Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has announced he will visit the Gaza Strip at the end of May.
"God willing, we will be in Gaza at the end of May. We will embrace one another there," he said.
Erdogan did not give a specific date for the visit but said in a televised speech in Ankara it would be "around the end of May".
Before, he will travel to Washington to meet President Barack Obama on May 16.
The Turkish Prime Minister was expected to travel to Gaza earlier this month but he postponed his trip at the request of Washington, according to Turkish media reports.
The United States wanted the trip delayed, the reports said, so as not spoil a nascent rapprochement between Turkey and Israel following a US-brokered Israeli apology in March for the killing of nine Turks in the Mavi Marmara incident in 2010.
For full restoration and re-appointment of its ambassador in Israel, Ankara insists that the Jewish state pay compensation for the raid victims and lift its restrictions on Gaza.
Officials from both sides are set to meet on April 22 in Turkey to discuss the terms of such compensation. Turkish officials had also postponed that meeting, originally planned for April 11, citing scheduling conflicts.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry met Erdogan in Istanbul last week, his second visit to Turkey in just over a month.
The Palestinian Authority (PA) is opposed to Erdogan’s Gaza visit, a senior Fatah official and close advisor to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, said Monday.
The PA believes that Erdogan’s visit to the Gaza Strip would deepen Palestinian divisions, said Azzam al-Ahmed.
Ahmed said that Abbas was planning to visit Ankara soon in a bid to persuade Erdogan not to go to the Gaza Strip.
“We hope this visit does not take place,” Ahmed said. “Anyone who visits the Gaza Strip without coordination with the Palestinian Authority supports and deepens the split between the West Bank and Gaza Strip.”