Egyptian FM Sameh Shoukry and his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu said diplomatic relations should be upgraded to ambassadorial level “as soon as possible”.
Egypt’s foreign minister said talks with Turkey on the possibility of restoring ties at ambassadorial level would take place at the ‘appropriate time’ during the first visit to Cairo by Turkey’s top diplomat since the severance of relations he ten years ago.
At a joint press conference on Saturday, Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry and his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu said Turkey would raise diplomatic relations with Egypt to ambassadorial level “as soon as possible”.
“I am very happy that we are taking concrete steps to normalize relations with Egypt… We will do our best not to sever our ties again in the future,” Cavusoglu said.
Shoukry said, “We will start talks (on the restoration of ambassadors) at the appropriate time, depending on the positive results it brings.”
Ties between Turkey and Egypt were severely strained after Egypt’s then-military chief Abdel Fattah el-Sisi led the withdrawal of Mohamed Morsi from the Muslim Brotherhood, an ally of Ankara, in 2013. El-Sisi was elected president the following year.
The two countries have also been at odds in recent years over Libya, where they have backed opposing factions in an unresolved conflict, as well as maritime borders in the gas-rich eastern Mediterranean.
Cavusoglu said on Saturday that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Egyptian el-Sissi would meet “after Turkish elections”, including the presidential election scheduled for May 14, to mark the end of a decade of estrangement between the two. country.
Diplomatic relations “still weak”
Istanbul reporter Resul Serdar of Al Jazeera said two interrelated issues remain unresolved in Egypt-Turkey relations.
“There is a promise of restoring ties, but relations at the diplomatic level are still quite weak,” Serdar said, pointing to the countries’ opposing positions on Libya and the eastern Mediterranean as the main sticking points.
“Turkey and Egypt support different camps. Turkey backs internationally recognized government based in Tripoli [in Libya] while Egypt supports Benghazi, Khalifa Haftar and his army there,” Serdar said.
Libya has seen little peace since the 2011 NATO-backed uprising that toppled Muammar Gaddafi, and it split in 2014 between rival eastern and western factions, dragging down regional powers.
“In 2019, the Eastern Mediterranean Gas Forum was formed… but Turkey was deliberately excluded. In response, Turkey signed a maritime agreement with the Tripoli-based government,” Serdar added.
Consultations between senior foreign ministry officials in Ankara and Cairo began in 2021 amid pressure from Turkey to ease tensions with Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Israel and Saudi Arabia.
As part of this attempt at reconciliation, Ankara has asked opposition Egyptian television stations operating in Turkey to moderate their criticism of Egypt.
morsi dead in jail in Egypt in 2019. Other senior Muslim Brotherhood officials are imprisoned in Egypt or have fled abroad, and the group remains banned.
Last month, Shoukry traveled to Turkey in a show of solidarity after the massive earthquakes which killed more than 50,000 people in Turkey and Syria.
The Egyptian government, which is struggling to manage an acute shortage of foreign exchange, said Turkish companies had pledged to invest $500 million in new investments in Egypt.