Turkey is not a stranger.. Who is Irit Lillian, Israel's ambassador to Ankara?
Today, Sunday, the Israeli government approved the appointment of the new ambassador to Turkey, Irit Lillian, after she was named a day after announcing the return of full relations between the two countries.
Israel's new ambassador to Ankara draws on long diplomatic experience, in several countries, including Turkey, so she is no stranger to those countries.
The Israeli diplomat, Irit Lillian, enjoys good relations with Turkish officials, which she built up in recent years, when she was acting as the Turkish ambassador, who was absent from the country in 2018.
Her long experience and knowledge of Turkey qualified her to take up the position of the Israeli ambassador in Ankara, within the framework of the full normalization of relations between the two countries, which was announced recently, and is now awaiting approval by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a step that experts do not expect to be an obstacle to her assumption of the position.
Irit Lillian was born in 1962 in Rehovot, central Israel, and holds a BA in Archeology from Tel Aviv University, and a MA in Oriental and Western Studies from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
During her military service, Irit Lillian was a news producer and editor for the Israeli Army Radio, and later joined the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in 1986.
She was the acting ambassador of Israel to Australia in 2007, then the ambassador to Bulgaria from 2015 to 2018, and she was chosen in mid-2021 as the acting ambassador to Turkey, and she remains until her appointment in the new position.
An Israeli ambassador has not been appointed in Ankara since 2018, then Irit Lillian took over the management of Israel's interests there starting in 2021.
Last August, Israel and Turkey announced the return of the full normalization of relations between them, and the return of the ambassadors of the two countries.
Relations between the two countries have witnessed a remarkable development in the past months, with the exchange of visits by senior officials of the two countries.
https://al-ain.com/article/israel-turkey-normalization-relations-ambassador
