Çavuşoğlu: efforts on preparing for a meeting between Erdogan and Sisi is ongoing

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu announced on Saturday from Cairo “preparing for a meeting” between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al Sisi, to end a decade of estrangement between the two countries.

“We want to restore diplomatic relations between the two countries at the highest level,” Çavuşoğlu said during a press conference with his Egyptian counterpart, Sameh Shoukry.

“We may disagree in the future, but we will do everything we can to avoid severing relations again,” he added.

Çavuşoğlu received Shukri in February in Türkiye after the devastating earthquake that struck Türkiye on February 6, killing 48,500 in this country.

Relations between Egypt and Türkiye were strained after Abdel Fattah al Sisi came to power in 2013 following his overthrow of Islamist President Mohamed Morsi, of whom Ankara was one of his most prominent supporters.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, an ally of Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood, had declared at the time that he would never communicate with Sisi.

But the two leaders spoke on the phone a day after the devastating earthquake in Türkiye.

They also shook hands in November at the World Cup in Qatar 2022, another country with which Egypt recently reopened relations after being accused of being close to the Muslim Brotherhood.

Çavuşoğlu confirmed on Saturday that after the elections in Türkiye, including the presidential elections on May 14, “our president will meet with President Sisi”.

On the trade level, exchanges between the two countries didn’t stop, but rather increased from $4.4 billion in 2007 to $11.1 billion in 2020, according to the Carnegie Research Center.

Even in 2022, Ankara was the first importer of Egyptian products worth $4 billion.

However, differences still exist between the two countries, at a time when Istanbul has become the capital of Arab media that criticize their governments, especially those close to the Muslim Brotherhood, which Cairo considers terrorist.

Likewise, interests separate Cairo and Ankara also in Libya, where Turkiye sent military advisers and drones to confront Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar, the strong man in the Libyan east supported by Egypt.