According to Israeli historian Yair Auron, the Turkish authorities probably learned of the conference from an article in The Jerusalem Post on 20 April 1982. A group of Turkish Jews visited Israel to make the claim that if the conference went ahead, the lives of Jews in Turkey would be in danger. The Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs sent Jak Veissid, the chairman of the lay council of the Turkish Jewish Community, to Israel to have the conference cancelled. Charny later recalled having been accosted in Tel Aviv by Veissid, who told him that Turkey's border would be closed to Syrian and Iranian Jews fleeing persecution if the conference went ahead.
