Israel has decided to lower the level of its diplomatic representation in Turkey Israel’s Channel 2 News reported Wednesday.
According to the report after the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador in Ankara last May the foreign ministry decided that his successor would be a junior diplomat.
The Channel quoted Israeli foreign ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nakhshon as saying that Tel Aviv also decided not to appoint a new consul to Israel in Istanbul.
He pointed out that Israel downgraded its diplomatic representation in Turkey in accordance with the principle of “reciprocity.”
A few months ago the Turkish leadership ordered the deportation of the Israeli ambassador in the country and recalled its ambassador in Tel Aviv in protest of the cold-blooded killing of 60 Palestinian protesters in Gaza who were demonstrating against the relocation of the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in mid-May one day before they commemorated the Nakba which saw about a million Palestinians forced out of their homes to make way for the creation of the state of Israel.
