Israeli and Turkey to hold Mavi Marmara compensation talks

‏           Turkish and Israeli diplomats will meet this week for talks on compensation for the nine Turks that died in the 2010 Mavi Marmara IDF raid. Turkish daily Hurriyet reported that the diplomats are set to iron out the technical details of the compensation."Normalization will come gradually over time," a Turkish official told Hurriyet. Meanwhile, Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said that the Israeli apology for the Mavi Marmara incident that was brokered by US President Barack Obama met Turkey's conditions. . Erdogan said the region is entering a new period. He plans to visit the Palestinian Authority and the Gaza Strip next month. Erdogan said that they were at the beginning of a process to elevate Turkey to a position so that it will again have a say, initiative and power as it did in the past. Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu who spoke with Erdogan on Friday agreed to meet Turkey's three conditions. These were a clear apology, compensation to the victims families and a relaxation of the blockade against Gaza. Prime Minister Netanyahu posted on his Facebook page that Turkey and Israel, which both share a border with Syria, are able to communicate with each other and this is also relevant to other regional challenges. In addition, the visit of US President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Kerry created an opportunity to end the crisis. "That is why towards the end of the US president's visit he said he decided to call the Turkish prime minister on order to solve the crisis and mend the relations between our two nations."