TEL AVIV, Israel, Feb. 14 (UPI) -- Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert flies to Turkey Wednesday to try and enhance strategic ties between the two powerful regional states.
"There is a very important strategic relationship" and Israel hopes to expand defense relations, Olmert's media adviser Miri Eisin said. These should include joint maneuvers, exchange of information, arms sales and joint development projects, she said. The two leaders are also expected to discuss economic issues, such as re-establishing an industrial zone in the northern Gaza Strip that should help alleviate Gazan poverty and benefit from proximity and easier access across the border to Israel.
Another idea calls for laying a pipeline that would carry natural gas and oil to Israel, use an existing pipeline across Israel to the port of Eilat, at the northern tip of the Red Sea, where it would be loaded on tankers to emerging markets in Asia.
More than half of Turkey's Cabinet members have been to Israel since 2002 and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan visited in 2005. Olmert has been to Turkey but this will be his first visit there as prime minister.
Some 400,000 Israelis visit Turkey every year, partly because the trip there is inexpensive, and an Israeli government official noted that by now -- statistically -- every Israeli has been there.
The civilian trade volume reaches some $2.5 billion a year, in addition to large mutual investments in both countries amounting to billions more annually, the official said.
