Netanyahu's office denies report of imminent meeting with Erdogan

No meeting between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been set up at the end of the month at the UN, a senior source in the Prime Minister's Office said Thursday as quoted by the Jerusalem Post newspaper.

The Prime Minister's Office has not released any list of the leaders Netanyahu plans to meet on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly debate. 

Netanyahu is expected to travel to the UN on September 20, speak to the General Assembly on September 22, and return to Israel on September 25. As of yet no meeting has been set up as well with US President Barack Obama, neither in New York nor in Washington.

Channel 1 reported that a Netanyahu-Erdogan meeting, set up through “secret diplomatic channels,” will take place at the UN, and that the meeting was made possible by Erdogan’s recent signing of the reconciliation agreement with Israel that the Turkish parliament ratified late last month. This would be the first meeting between the two leaders.

Even though the accord was signed in late June, and ratified by the Turkish parliament last month, an exchange of ambassadors – the final step toward full normalization – has not yet taken place. One diplomatic official said that this is expected to occur once Israel transfers $20 million to a fund set up for the families of the 9 Turks killed on the Mavi Marmara in 2010 when the ship was stopped by IDF commandos as it tried to break the naval blockade of Gaza.

The money is to be transferred some 25 days after Erdogan put his final signature on the accord on August 31.

Source: MENA