Israel to open permanent mission at NATO headquarters: Netanyahu

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Tel Aviv will enhance relations with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and open a permanent mission at the Western military bloc’s headquarters in Brussels.

"Israel will accept the invitation and open an office, in the near future," Netanyahu said at the start of a cabinet meeting in al-Quds (Jerusalem) on Wednesday.

The remarks came one day after NATO announced that it had agreed to "an official Israeli mission” at the headquarters of the 28-member alliance with the Israeli envoy to Belgium as head of the office.

Meanwhile, Tommy Steiner, an expert at the Israeli Institute for Policy and Strategy, told AFP that the move was triggered after other NATO members pressured Turkey to abandon its veto on closer ties with Tel Aviv.

"It's a Turkish confidence-building measure vis-a-vis Israel," Steiner said.

Despite invitations to open mission under the new NATO partnership policy adopted in 2014, “Israel never did that because there was a Turkish veto on such a measure,” he said, adding that NATO would not invite Israel into a full-fledged mutual-defense pact, because "Israel is not going to be a full member, it's not on the cards.”

Israel and Turkey were traditionally close allies in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Close Ankara-Tel Aviv relations, however, soured following an Israeli attack on an aid ship that was attempting to break the Israeli naval blockade of the Gaza Strip.

On May 31, 2010, Israeli commandos attacked the Freedom Flotilla in international waters in the Mediterranean Sea, killing nine Turkish citizens and injuring about 50 other people who were part of the team on the six-ship convoy. A tenth Turkish national later succumbed to his injuries.

In September that year, Turkey suspended its military ties with Israel and expelled the Israeli envoy from Ankara over Tel Aviv’s refusal to apologize for its killing of the Turkish nationals aboard the Gaza-bound vessel.

Since last December, however, the two sides have held several rounds of talks aimed at normalizing tense ties.

“Turkey blocked everything (at NATO) concerning Israel," following the Gaza flotilla raid, a Brussels-based diplomat said, adding, however, that "after five years, the Turks lifted their objections."

The Israeli regime is an associate member of the NATO parliamentary assembly and has taken part in joint military drills with the bloc’s members other than Turkey, notably the United States.

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