Until the Ministry of Foreign Affairs arrived this afternoon Israeli ambassador, Gil Artzyeli. Her visit responded to an invitation made by the chancellor Antonia Urrejolain the midst of diplomatic tension between that country and Chile.
And it is that during the morning, while in La Moneda, Artzyeli was informed that the meeting he had planned with the President Gabriel Boric at 10.00 to present his credentials had been suspended. The situation, which caused annoyance in the Israeli community, tried to be contained from the government -precisely- with the invitation for this afternoon, where he would be received by the Undersecretary of Foreign Affairs, Ximena Fuentes.
After the meeting, Artzyeli gave his version of the events, and assured that the Foreign Ministry apologized for what happened “repeatedly”.
“I was summoned by the minister and the deputy director of Foreign Relations. We had a long meeting of more than an hour in which they have repeatedly apologized to me and to the State of Israel and we opened a new page”, expressed the Israeli ambassador.
“For me it was a not very comfortable incident this morningbut being an Israeli and a Jew my people have been through worse things in the last four thousand years and let’s get over this incident this morningfor the good of Chile and the good of Israel and our bilateral relations”, he added.
Artzyeli also assured that “it was an incident that will be explained by the Chilean Foreign Ministry. I was invited to La Moneda, I arrived and they did not let me enter. This was what happened. And the explanation will be given by the ministry”.
Likewise, he commented that -being in the Palace- “they have said that the delivery of the credential letters will be in the next month, in October”.
Asked about possible actions or measures by the Embassy of Israel in the face of what happened during the morning, the authority stated that “we’re checking, i’m just leaving, i haven’t talked to jerusalem yet”.
However, he stated that, after the appointment at the ministry’s offices, relations remained “strengthened”.
“As I have said, I have received an apology, I accept it and we turn the page, we turn the chapter, we change the book and we are going to strengthen bilateral relations for the good of the Chileans and the Israelis,” he remarked.
In this context, he explained that the conversation lasted for “almost an hour and a half”, in which “the bilateral relationship was addressed, what we can do together, I repeat for the real good of the people. The people want the health system that works well, the water system, innovation, we can work together in so many areas for the good of the two peoples”.
According to the information that came out this day -and that The Third PM– the reason given to the Israeli ambassador this morning to suspend the appointment with the head of state alluded to death of a palestinian teenager.
Specifically, the situation referred to by La Moneda was the case of a young man who died on Thursday in a confrontation with the Israeli Army in a northern part of West Bank.
After the meeting at the Foreign Ministry, Artzyeli was required for such information. “In the Middle East there is a conflict that lasts 100 years, as you know we are the original people there for the last 3 thousand years. Now there is a conflict where there are victims on both sides and the new East is already in a new era of peace, ”he said in this regard.
“Just today we commemorate two years of celebrations with the Emirates, with Morocco, with Bahrain, and 40 years with Egypt, with Jordan. We are in a new Middle East of peace. And here the polarization in Chile for reasons that I do not understand is much more than in the Middle East that we are on a new page. Hopefully this message of peace, of cooperation that exists between Israel and its Arab neighbors, also reaches Chile,” he said.