Turkish diplomatic delegation visits Cairo on 5-6 May, Turkish Foreign Ministry formally announced. Turkish and Egyptian officials meet today to reset ties between the two regional powers after years of enmity.
The two-day “political consultations” between the two nations will take place in Cairo. Egypt’s deputy foreign minister Hamdi Loza and his Turkish counterpart Sedat Onal will chair the meeting. Egypt’s Foreign Ministry described the talks as “exploratory discussions” that would focus on “the necessary steps that may lead towards the normalisation of relations between the two countries, bilaterally and in the regional context.”
Egypt and Turkey have been at loggerheads since the Egyptian military’s 2013 ouster of president from the Muslim Brotherhood group, who enjoyed the support of Turkey. Ankara long-time refused to recognise Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi as the country’s legitimate leader following a coup that ousted his predecessor, Mohamed Morsi, Egypt’s first democratically elected president.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on March 12 that the two countries have held “intelligence, diplomatic and economic” contacts, adding that he hoped for “strong” ties between the two nations.
A week after Erdogan’s remarks, his government asked three Istanbul-based Egyptian TV channels linked to the Muslim Brotherhood to soften their critical political coverage of the Egyptian government.
The two nations backed the opposing side in the conflict in Libya. Turkey and Libya signed a maritime agreement where Egypt and Greece responded by signing a separate deal to delineate their maritime boundaries, which Ankara rejected.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said at an interview that Turkey had made some goodwill gestures to Egypt within NATO, without giving further details. The Turkish government lifted a veto against Egypt’s partnership activities with NATO last year as part of attempts to repair ties with Cairo, Middle East Eye wrote.
Most recently Egyptian delegation visited Libya to restart relations with the interim government.
