Trend Arabic News Service commentator Aygul Taghiyeva
Although Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's recent visit to Egypt was planned in advance, due to the deterioration of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, it has acquired new features.
Thus, in addition to the planned discussion of economic cooperation and political partnership, Ankara and Cairo discussed the situation in Gaza and decided to support the Palestinians and to take efforts to end violence in the region.
It is interesting that returning from Egypt in Cairo, Erdogan left Omer Celik, one of the country's deputy prime ministers, and a group of high-ranking Turkish intelligence employees lead by intelligence chief Hakan Fidan.
It is commonly known that Celik has served as an adviser to the Turkish president on Middle Eastern policy in recent years and was involved in the negotiations between Turkey and Israel.
This suggests that Turkey may engage in secret talks with Israel to stop the conflict from escalating.
Such a conclusion was indirectly confirmed by Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc last week, who stated that Turkey must negotiate with Israel to end the violence in Gaza despite the fact that the relations between Ankara and Tel Aviv are insignificant.
Although Erdogan denied this idea, as Turkey holds resentment toward Israel grounded in the conflict with the Freedom Flotilla.
There is another fact that could push Turkey to negotiate with Israel to end the operation in Gaza. Iran has become more active in the Palestinian issue lately, in an effort to show that, no country in the region, except for Iran, cares about the Palestinian problem.
By the way, the relations between Turkey and Iran have recently sharply deteriorated due to a divergence of views on the Syrian crisis.
By stopping Israeli attacks on Gaza, Turkey will be able to take the image of fighter for the rights of Palestinians away from Iran.
The fact that Turkey is the only country in the region that can agree with the U.S. and Israel on the Palestinian issue, cannot be ignored. After all, due to recent changes in the country and the coming to power of the "Muslim Brotherhood", headed by Mohammed Morsi, Egypt, the former mediator between Israel and Palestine does not inspire confidence of Tel Aviv or Washington.
Therefore it can be concluded that, after secret negotiations with Israel, Turkey can bring an end to violence in Gaza, and thus add extra coin in the coin box of world prestige.