The parliamentary group of the ruling party in Turkey on Tuesday proposed the creation of a
Turkish-Egyptian
"friendship group"
, a further sign of Ankara's openness to Cairo after years of tension, according to media reports.
A request for the creation of this group was submitted to the presidency of the Assembly by the parliamentary group of the AKP, the Islamo-conservative party of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Read also: Turkey breaks the ice with Egypt
This demand comes as Turkey has increased in recent months its gestures of openness towards Egypt, with which it has maintained appalling relations since the dismissal in 2013 of the first democratically elected Egyptian president, Mohamed Morsi, from the Muslim Brotherhood and supported by Ankara. The head of Turkish diplomacy Mevlut Cavusoglu announced on April 15 that a Turkish delegation should go to Egypt in early May to discuss a
"normalization"
of relations between the two countries.
Mevlut Cavusoglu had estimated the day before that relations between Ankara and Cairo had entered a
"new era"
of detente, after years of tension. In an interview with HaberTurk channel on Tuesday, Mevlut Cavusoglu indicated that Ankara was ready to sign an agreement with Cairo on their maritime borders.
“If we come to an agreement, we will sign it,”
he said.
"It would also be profitable for Egypt." "We do not see Libya as a competition area with Egypt or with any other country,"
he added. The two regional powers have clashed in recent years on many issues, in particular over Libya where they each supported an opposing camp.
Turkey's opening gestures come as it seeks to emerge from its diplomatic isolation in the eastern Mediterranean, where the discovery of large natural gas deposits in recent years has given rise to a sharing between the riparian countries including Ankara. feels excluded. In early April, an Egyptian host known for his outspoken criticism of the Egyptian regime on an Istanbul-based channel announced that he was going on
"unlimited leave"
after Turkey asked Egyptian opposition media operating in its territory to tone down. with regard to Cairo. This beginning of the thaw between Ankara and Cairo coincides with an ongoing appeasement between Egypt and Qatar, Turkey's main ally in the region.
