MADRID, November 27 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The President of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has confirmed that he will meet in the future with his Egyptian counterpart, Abdelfata al Sisi, after the handshake between the two leaders at the World Cup in Qatar, the first major sign of a thaw in tense diplomatic relations. for years.
“The process with Egypt has begun,” Erdogan said in an interview with Haberturk TV Sunday collected by Bloomberg. “After the talks at the ministerial level we will meet face to face,” he said without giving further details about the possible date of the meeting.
The handshake in Qatar followed sporadic talks and efforts to improve relations amid a broader push to bridge divisions in the region as the US gradually withdraws from the area.
Erdogan revealed for the first time that he spoke with Sisi for around 30-45 minutes during their Doha meeting and “both sides were happy with the meeting.”
“If relations with Egypt return to normal, we can do the same with Syria,” Erdogan has come to venture, about a possible meeting with the Syrian president, Bashar al Assad, a pariah for the Western community since the outbreak of the war. in the Arab republic.
Bilateral relations were seriously damaged after the coup d’etat led by Al Sisi in 2013, which overthrew the Islamist Mohamed Mursi, who a year earlier had become the first elected president in the history of the African country after Hosni’s departure from power. Mubarak in 2011 in the middle of the ‘Arab Spring’.
The tension between the two countries has also increased in recent years due to territorial disputes in the eastern Mediterranean, where Turkey is an ally of Libya in its claims over territorial waters with possible hydrocarbon resources, while Egypt is more aligned with Greece.
