NewsMiddle EastA meeting between Sisi and Erdogan planned after the elections in Turkey

A meeting between Sisi and Erdogan planned after the elections in Turkey

Published on : 03/19/2023 – 16:46

During a visit to Cairo on Saturday, the Turkish Foreign Minister announced an upcoming meeting between the Turkish presidents, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and Egyptian, Abdel Fattah al-Sissi, “after the Turkish elections”.

Towards the end of a decade of diplomatic estrangement between Turkey and Egypt? In any case, this is the stated objective at the press conference held in Cairo on Saturday March 18, between Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Choukri and his Turkish counterpart Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu.

The latter said “want to restore diplomatic relations between the two countries at the highest level”, explaining that it “is possible that we will disagree in the future but we will do everything to avoid breaking our relations again” .

Sameh Choukri confirmed to him the existence of “a political will emanating from the presidents of the two countries (…) aimed at normalizing their relations”.

Erdogan-Sisi meeting

During the press conference, Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu assured that “after the Turkish elections”, including the presidential one scheduled for May 14, “our president (Recep Tayyip Erdogan) will meet President Sissi”.

“We have opened a new page in our relations with Egypt, with whom we have deep ties”, indicated on Twitter the Turkish Minister.

The United States, for its part, “welcomed” this visit, “an important step for the stability and prosperity of the region” declared, on Saturday, on Twitter, the national security adviser of the White House, Jake Sullivan.

Breaking of relations in 2013

Relations between Ankara and Cairo were abruptly severed after Abdel Fattah al-Sisi came to power in 2013. The latter’s dismissal of Egypt’s first democratically elected president Mohamed Morsi, a Muslim Brotherhood member and great ally of Turkey, then made President Erdogan repeat that he would “never” speak to “someone like” Abdel Fatah al-Sissi.

In the aftermath of the February 6 earthquake that killed nearly 48,500 people in Turkey, the two men had however spoken by telephone after exchanging their very first handshake in November, at the World Cup in Qatar, another a country with which Egypt recently renewed ties after accusing it of closeness to the Muslim Brotherhood.

And Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu had received his Egyptian counterpart at the end of February in Turkey, after the earthquake.

Divergent interests

Commercially, trade between Egypt and Turkey has never ceased: it rose from $4.4 billion in 2007 to $11.1 billion in 2020, notes the Carnegie Research Center. In 2022, Ankara was even the first importer of Egyptian products worth four billion dollars.

But disagreements remain between the two capitals, Istanbul having become “the capital” of Arab media critical of their governments, in particular those close to the brotherhood of the Muslim Brotherhood, considered “terrorists” by Cairo.

And the interests of Cairo and Ankara also diverge in Libya, where Turkey has sent military advisers and drones against Marshal Khalifa Haftar, a strongman from the East, supported in particular by Egypt.

With AFP

Source: France 24

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