Turkey's Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu and Egypt's Foreign Minister Sameh Shukri at a meeting in Cairo, March 18, 2023 (Photo: Reuters)
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu met yesterday (Saturday) in Cairo with his Egyptian counterpart, in the first visit of a Turkish foreign minister to the country in more than a decade.
His visit is another step in the reconciliation process between the two countries, whose relations were effectively severed in 2013 following the military coup against President Mohamed Morsi, who was a close ally of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
However, since 2021 there has been a compromise in relations, and Erdogan even met with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi at the opening of the World Cup in Qatar last winter.
During a joint press conference, Egypt's Foreign Minister Samah Shoukry said that the talks with Turkey on the return of the ambassadors will take place at the "appropriate time".
According to him, the talks were "honest, in-depth and transparent".
Last month, Shukri visited Turkey to show solidarity with the victims of the earthquake, the first visit by Egypt's most senior diplomat to the country since the deterioration of relations.
"There is a political will and decisions by the two presidents when they met in Doha to follow the path of full normalization of relations," Shoukry said, referring to the meeting between Erdogan and Sisi in the capital of Qatar, during which they even shook hands.
Turkey's foreign minister said Ankara would send an ambassador to Egypt "as soon as possible."
"I am very happy that we are taking concrete steps to normalize relations with Egypt. We will do our best so that there will not be another rift in our relations in the future," Chebushuelo said.
The United States welcomed the visit.
"An important step for making the region more stable and prosperous," national security adviser Jake Sullivan wrote on Twitter.
The talks between Turkey and Egypt took place a week after Iran and Saudi Arabia announced the renewal of their relations after seven years of disconnection, following secret talks mediated by China.
Erdogan previously called Sisi a "tyrant" following the overthrow of Morsi, but in recent years the Turkish president turned to a diplomatic path and worked to restore relations with Israel, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates after a long period of tensions.
Talks between Egyptian and Turkish diplomats began in 2021, during which Ankara asked the Egyptian opposition channels operating from its territory to soften their criticism of the regime in Cairo.
Morsi died in prison in Egypt in 2019, when other leaders of the "Muslim Brotherhood" movement were imprisoned or fled the country, which defined it as a terrorist organization.
In addition to this, the two countries are also divided about Libya, where they support two rival governments, and also about the maritime borders in the Mediterranean Sea.
Last month, Turkish companies promised to invest half a billion dollars in Egypt, which is suffering from a severe shortage of foreign currency.
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From Chebushuelo
