A delegation of senior officials from the Turkish Foreign Ministry on Tuesday began talks in Cairo on a warming of relations, strained between the two countries since 2013. The Egyptian Foreign Ministry announced in a statement the start Tuesday of
"political talks between Egypt and Turkey ”
, which are to continue on Wednesday.
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"These discussions must focus on the measures necessary to achieve a normalization of relations between the two countries at the bilateral and regional level"
, according to the text. Turkey has increased in recent months its gestures of openness towards Egypt and announced on March 12 that it had established its first
"diplomatic contacts
" with Cairo since 2013. Three days later, the head of Turkish diplomacy Mevlut Cavusoglu announced the visit of a Turkish delegation in early May to Egypt to discuss
"normalization"
between the two countries.
His Egyptian counterpart, Sameh Choukri, had asserted that
"words were not enough"
for the restoration of full relations. Relations between the two countries had deteriorated sharply after the dismissal in 2013 of the first democratically elected president of Egypt, Mohamed Morsi, from the Muslim Brotherhood and supported by Turkey. After the Arab uprisings in 2011, Istanbul became
"the capital"
of Arab media critical of their governments, including Egyptian media close to the Brotherhood of the Muslim Brotherhood, banned by Cairo in 2013.
But Egyptian Istanbul-based opposition media were urged in March by Turkish authorities to
"tone down"
on the power of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. Discussions in Cairo are expected to focus on Libya, where the two countries have supported two opposing sides in the conflict in recent years.
