Foreign Minister Yair Lapid plans to visit Turkey this week, his office said on Sunday, after months of warming ties but also recent worries voiced by Israel that its citizens could come under attack by Iranian agents in the NATO-member country.
The statement said that Lapid, during his trip on Thursday, would meet with Turkish counterpart Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, who last month visited Israel to encourage expanded economic cooperation.
Israel has warned its citizens against travel to Turkey, citing suspected assassination or abduction plots by Iran, which has vowed to avenge the May 22 assassination of a Revolutionary Guards colonel in Tehran that it blamed on Israeli agents.
Iran has not commented on the Israeli travel warning, which is currently focused on Istanbul. In a June 13 statement that did not name any other countries, Turkey's Foreign Ministry alluded to the warning and said it was a safe country with "cooperation mechanisms for the battle with terrorism".
Çavuşoğlu's visit was in the background of the warming of relations between Turkey and Israel and came two and a half months after the visit of President Isaac Herzog to Ankara.
Against the backdrop of the recently publicized Iranian plot to carry out terror attacks against Israelis in Istanbul, President Isaac Herzog spoke on Sunday with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan and thanked him for the efforts to thwart terrorist activities on Turkish soil.
In their conversation, President Herzog emphasized that the threat has not yet passed and that the counterterror efforts must continue. The two leaders agreed to continue working for peace and stability in the region by means of an open and ongoing dialogue.