Egypt and Turkey have chosen ambassadors to reestablish their diplomatic ties.
Turkey and Egypt restore diplomatic ties: The two governments announced in a joint statement released by the Turkish foreign ministry on Tuesday that Egypt named Amr Elhamamy as its ambassador to Ankara and Turkey named Salih Mutlu Sen as its ambassador to Cairo.
The statement read, “This step reflects the mutual will to improve bilateral relations in the interests of the Turkish and Egyptian peoples and aims at the renormalisation of relations between the two countries.”
In 2013, the then-military commander and current Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi staged a coup to depose President Mohamed Morsi, a former leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, a political Islamist organisation active in several countries. As a result, relations between Cairo and Ankara were severed.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey and his conservative Justice and Development Party (AK Party), which was close to the Muslim Brotherhood, backed Morsi, the nation’s first democratically elected president.
Mensur Akgun, a professor of international politics at Istanbul’s Kultur University, states that the 2013 coup has resulted in highly strained relations between two significant regional powers. This strain has been primarily due to Ankara’s steadfast opposition to President el-Sisi’s administration.
“Reviving Political Dialogue: Turkey and Egypt Move Towards Reconciliation and Diplomatic Ties”
In his statement to Al Jazeera, he highlighted that the re-establishment of relations at the ambassadorial level today demonstrates the readiness of both sides to resume political dialogue. Previously, the political dialogue between the two sides had been frozen until a few years ago.
Akgun stated that both sides in the region should have protected their best interests. He added, “I believe both countries understood that they cannot change each other and find a perfect addressee on the other side of the table.”
The two regional foes have been at odds since 2013, and their leaders have publicly verbally insulted one another. However, in the 2020s, they started a process of reconciliation.
Senior foreign ministry representatives from the two nations have been in contact since 2021, and after el-Sisi and Erdogan shook hands at the World Cup in Qatar in late 2022, efforts to improve relations between Turkey and Egypt gained momentum.
In 2023, the two sides have publicly and frequently engaged in ministerial-level negotiations, friendly messages, and talks about resuming full diplomatic ties.
Turkish outreach in the region
The recent foreign policy push of Ankara to mend relations with other regional countries, such as the United Arab Emirates, Israel, and Saudi Arabia, included talks with Cairo.
Issues of contention between Ankara and Cairo before Ankara began attempting to mend its relations in the region included sharing hydrocarbon resources in the eastern Mediterranean, the turmoil in Libya, the war in Syria, and a diplomatic crisis in the Gulf.
After Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Egypt severed their diplomatic and commercial ties with Doha in June 2017, a move that clearly established rival regional alliances, Turkey backed Qatar.
The four Arab allies, with the backing of a number of other nations, placed Qatar under a sea, land, and air blockade. They accused Doha of supporting “terrorism,” a charge categorically rejected by the Gulf state.
The end of the Gulf Crisis in 2021, according to Akgun, has sparked Ankara’s desire to mend its relations with regional nations.
“Qatar and Turkey are important geopolitical partners, and Ankara would never strengthen its ties with the countries that are blockading them to their current levels,” he said.
To let Qatar down was never an option for Ankara, Akgun said. “I believe the resolution of the Gulf crisis has always been a precondition for normalisation of relations with the four blockading Gulf states.”
By signing deals with Qatar in January 2021, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the UAE, and Bahrain were able to end their embargo and resume regular ties with Qatar after more than three years.