Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has met exiled Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal to break the daily fast during the holy Muslim month of Ramadan, the Associated Press reported citing state-run TRT television.

According to the report, Erdogan hosted Mashaal at his residence in Ankara on Tuesday, July 24 evening.

Ties between Turkey, NATO’s biggest Muslim member, and the Islamic militant Hamas, which rules Gaza, have been developing since Turkey’s alliance with Israel collapsed over a deadly raid by Israeli troops on a Turkish aid ship bound for Gaza in 2010.

In January, Hamas premier of the Gaza Strip, Ismail Haniyeh, visited Erdogan at his Istanbul home.