CAIRO: Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu has said that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Egyptian counterpart Abdel Fattah al-Sisi would meet to mark the end of a decade-long estrangement between the two sides.
While speaking alongside Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry on Saturday during a visit to Cairo, the Turkish diplomate said that Ankara wanted “to resume diplomatic, friendly relations between the two nations at the highest level.
His visit follows a trip last month by Sameh Shoukry to Turkiye in a show of solidarity after the tragic earthquake that claimed over fifty thousand lives in Turkiye and neighbouring Syria.
“It is possible that we would disagree in the time to come, but we would do everything to avoid affecting our relations again,” Cavusoglu further said.
Relations between the two sides ran into trouble after the 2013 ouster of Egypt’s Islamist president, Mohamed Morsi, an ally of Turkiye.
At the time, Tayyip Erdogan remarked that he would never speak to anyone like Fattah al-Sisi.
However, in November, Fattah al-Sisi and Tayyip Erdogan shook hands in Qatar, which the Egyptian presidency predicted as a new beginning in their relations, and both the leaders then spoke via telephone after the last month’s devasted earthquake.
Significance of Sisi and Erdogan meeting
On Saturday, the Turkish FM said the meeting between Sisi and Erdogan would take place after the Turkish polls and the presidential vote slated for May 14.
While diplomatic relations were once frosty, business never stopped, as in 2022, Turkiye was the largest importer of Egyptian products, with about 4 billion dollars.
Moreover, Ankara and Cairo also disagree over Libya, where Turkiye has sent military advisers backing forces opposed to Egyptian ally Khalifa Haftar, the eastern-based Libyan military strongman.
