Turkey has resumed diplomatic contacts with Egypt and wants further cooperation, Turkish leaders said on Friday, according to Reuters.
Relations between Egypt and Turkey have soured since the Egyptian army in 2013 ousted former President Mohammed Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood, which Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan openly supports.
Following Morsi’s ouster, Erdogan condemned the military intervention that toppled the Muslim Brotherhood president as an enemy of democracy, and chastised the West for failing to brand the ouster a coup.
Egypt later expelled the Turkish ambassador, accusing him of undermining the country. Ankara responded in kind.
Erdogan in 2014 referred to current Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi, who led the military at the time of Morsi’s ouster and later replaced him as president as a “tyrant”. An angry Egypt responded by summoning the Turkish charge d'affaires to complain about Erdogan’s comments.
Following Morsi’s death in 2019, Erdogan claimed that Morsi was "killed", and accused Egyptian authorities of failing to intervene to save the ex-President.
While two Egyptian intelligence sources said on Friday Turkey had proposed a meeting to discuss cooperation, they suggested that the contacts were still only preliminary, according to Reuters.
Erdogan said the contacts were “not at the highest level, but right below the highest level. We hope that we can continue this process with Egypt much more strongly.”
Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu was quoted as saying by state-owned Anadolu news agency, “We have contacts with Egypt both on the intelligence level and the foreign ministry level … Contacts at the diplomatic level have started.”
An Egyptian security official received a phone call from a Turkish intelligence official on Thursday, setting out Turkey’s desire for a meeting in Cairo to discuss economic, political and diplomatic cooperation, the Egyptian intelligence sources said.
The Egyptian official welcomed the call and promised to respond as soon as possible, the Egyptian sources said.
However, Egypt’s state-run MENA news agency reported that “there is nothing that could be described as ‘resuming diplomatic communications'” between the two countries, citing an official source.
(Arutz Sheva’s North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Arutz Sheva articles, however, is Israeli time.)