Egypt's Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry will head to Turkey and Syria Monday morning, his office said on Sunday, for the first such visit in a decade of tense relations with both countries, AFP reported.
The trip aims to show "solidarity with the two countries and their brotherly peoples" after the devastating earthquake that hit Syria and Turkey earlier this month, a foreign ministry statement said.
Shoukry's visit is the latest example of Arab outreach to the Syrian government. The 7.8-magnitude quake that struck on February 6 killed more than 46,000 people in both countries.
On February 7, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi called his Syrian counterpart Bashar Al-Assad, in the first official exchange between the two leaders. Shoukry also spoke with his Syrian counterpart.
The same day, Sisi spoke with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in one of their first diplomatic contacts under a recent rapprochement.
Relations between Egypt and Turkey have soured since the Egyptian army in 2013 ousted former President Mohammed Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood, which 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.
In 2021, however, Turkey resumed diplomatic contacts with Egypt and its leaders said it wants further cooperation.
In November, Sisi and Erdogan shook hands in Qatar, in what the Egyptian presidency heralded as a new beginning in their ties.