Israeli tourism to Turkey down 90 percent since flotilla raid

Here’s one dramatic sign of chilling relations between the onetime allies:  The number of Israelis visiting Turkey fell 90 percent in June from a year earlier amid tensions over the death of nine Turks in Israel’s May 31 raid on an aid flotilla bound for the Gaza Strip. Visitors from Israel fell to 2,605 from ...

By , a former associate editor at Foreign Policy.
MUSTAFA OZER/AFP/Getty Images
MUSTAFA OZER/AFP/Getty Images
MUSTAFA OZER/AFP/Getty Images

Here's one dramatic sign of chilling relations between the onetime allies: 

Here’s one dramatic sign of chilling relations between the onetime allies: 

The number of Israelis visiting Turkey fell 90 percent in June from a year earlier amid tensions over the death of nine Turks in Israel’s May 31 raid on an aid flotilla bound for the Gaza Strip.

Visitors from Israel fell to 2,605 from 27,289 in June 2009, fewer than the number entering Turkey from New Zealand, according to data released today on the website of the Tourism Ministry in Ankara. Total foreign tourist arrivals in June rose 7.3 percent from a year earlier to 3.5 million.

Joshua Keating is a former associate editor at Foreign Policy. Twitter: @joshuakeating

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