In the first-ever meeting between the two leaders, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu met with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on the sidelines of the 78th UN General Assembly in New York on Tuesday evening.

Mossad chief Dedi Barnea also participated in the meeting, which was held at the Turkish Embassy at the UN. The meeting was closed to the media.

A statement by Netanyahu’s office after the meeting said the two leaders decided to continue promoting Israel-Turkey relations in the fields of trade, economy, and energy. The Prime Minister’s Office emphasized that: “The leaders discussed regional and international issues, including the normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia.”

Netanyahu also thanked Erdogan “for the fruitful cooperation of our security organizations that thwarted the malicious intentions of terrorist groups to harm Israeli tourists in Istanbul, saving lives.”

The Prime Minister’s Office added: “The two leaders mutually invited each other for visits to Israel and Turkey and it was agreed that these visits will be coordinated and will take place soon.”

A statement by Erdogan’s office said that the two leaders discussed regional cooperation on energy, technology, innovation, AI, and cybersecurity and cooperation on the production of natural gas, as well as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)