Russia may be giving a Thanksgiving turkey to Israel in the form of tomatoes that it will import following a sudden ban on accepting produce from Turkey, another punishment for Ankara’s downing a Russian plane this week.
Now that Turkey is a rotten tomato for Russia, Israel will benefit from the need to find 360,000 tons of tomatoes to replace the banned imports.
Russian President Vladimir Putin already has ended security cooperation with Turkey and has asked Russians not visit the country. Moscow invented a diplomatic reason for the ban of food imports from Turkey, claiming that 15 percent of the agricultural imports from Ankara suddenly do not meet “sanitary regulations.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists:
We’re not imposing any embargo.
These (restrictions) are introduced due to an increasing danger from various manifestations of extremism. Of course, additional control measures are taken. This is rather natural, especially taking into account the unpredictable actions of the Republic of Turkey.
Turkish media quoted a member of the Turkish Exporters Association as saying:
Turkish vegetables account for 20 percent of the total Russian imports of vegetables. Import of vegetables, tomatoes in the first place, will be substituted with those from Iran, Morocco, Israel, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan.
Israel’s benefiting from Turkey’s intercept of the Russian is a double punishment for Turkish President Recep Erdoğan, whose wounds from the Russian reaction will be salted with the bonus for Israel.
He has not forgiven Israel for boarding the IHH-terrorist infested Mavi Mamara ship five years ago and killing 10 IHH terrorists who tried to kill Navy officers stopping the vessel from breaking the maritime embargo on Hamas-controlled Gaza.
The only negative might be a rise in the price of tomatoes in Israeli supermarkets because of the increased demand from Russia.