Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has insisted that Turkey’s conditions for normalization of relations with Israel remain but added that it is a fact that Turkey and Israel need each other in the region.

Speaking to a group of journalists aboard a plane en route to Turkey from a visit to Saudi Arabia, Erdoğan said Turkey still wants an apology for a 2010 Israeli raid on the Gaza-bound Mavi Marmara aid ship that killed 10 Turks, compensation for families of the victims and the lifting of the blockade of Gaza for normalization of ties with Israel, severed after the deadly raid.

“Israel needs a country like Turkey in the region. We need to accept that we also need Israel. This is a reality of the region,” Erdoğan said in remarks published in Turkish newspapers on Saturday.

Expectations of a breakthrough were intensified after Turkish and Israeli senior officials met last month for talks on mending ties. The talks, which come as Turkey’s relations with its No. 1 gas supplier, Russia, have worsened, raised hopes of progress in negotiations to import Israeli natural gas.

Erdoğan said the Israeli side has agreed to allow transfer of goods and construction materials to Gaza from Turkey but that Ankara awaits the agreement to be put in writing. “If we manage to take these steps with mutual sincerity, normalization will come along. We need to look out for our Palestinian brothers,” Erdoğan said.

He said “an end to the violations of the sanctity of al-Aqsa Mosque” was another issue of importance for Turkey, referring to one of the holiest sites in Islam located in the Old City of Jerusalem.

Erdoğan also dismissed criticism that a newly-formed alliance of Muslim countries led by Saudi Arabia was a sectarian initiative. “The alliance primarily aims at fighting terrorism,” he said. “It does not have a sectarian nature.”

Saudi Arabia said last month that more than 30 nations, including Turkey, have agreed to form a new “Islamic military alliance” to fight terrorism with a joint operations center based in its capital, Riyadh. Shiite majority Muslim nations Iran and Iraq are among the countries excluded from the alliance.

Agencies