President Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday that Turkey would like to have better ties with Israel, adding that talks at intelligence level continued between the two sides.

The two countries have had a bitter falling out in recent years, despite strong commercial ties, expelling ambassadors in 2018. Ankara has repeatedly condemned Israel’s occupation in the West Bank and its treatment of Palestinians.

“We are having issues with people at the top level,” Erdogan told reporters in Istanbul after Friday prayers.

“If there were no issues at the top level, our ties could have been very different,” he said, adding that Israel’s policies on Palestine were “unacceptable”.