Publications

Turkey welcomed Israel’s disengagement from the Gaza Strip in 2005, and the anticipated implementation of the plan was the background to the one and only visit to Israel in May 2005 by then-Turkish Prime Minister and current President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Erdogan also supported the idea of the Ankara Forum, a framework for cooperation between Turkish, Palestinian, and Israeli representatives for rebuilding the industrial zone at the Erez Crossing between Gaza and Israel. While to this day there are differing reports about who signed agreements in this framework and who was to have provided the security services to promote the venture, it is clear that with the final takeover of the Gaza Strip by Hamas in 2007, the idea was abandoned; instead, efforts were made to promote similar industrial zones in the West Bank.