ANKARA: Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi will visit Turkiye on Sept. 4, marking a significant milestone in the thawing of relations between the two countries after years of hostilities.
The visit follows Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan’s recent trip to Cairo, where he met El-Sisi and his Egyptian counterpart Badr Abdelatty to lay the groundwork for the upcoming visit. The agenda is expected to include key issues such as Gaza.
This visit continues the recent momentum in the Ankara-Cairo relationship, initiated by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s visit to Egypt in February — the first since 2012 — as both countries aim to elevate their ties to the level of “strategic cooperation.”
The diplomatic breakthrough led to an exchange of ambassadors in July 2023, and the two sides are expected to sign several agreements in sectors such as energy and tourism, alongside the inaugural meeting of the Strategic Cooperation Council.
El-Sisi’s visit is part of Turkiye’s broader diplomatic outreach, launched in 2020, to repair relations with former regional adversaries — a strategy aimed at ending Turkiye’s regional isolation and attracting critical investment.
However, restoring ties with Egypt has been one of Ankara’s most challenging diplomatic endeavors because it required Ankara to realign its relations with the Muslim Brotherhood by restricting the movement’s activities in Turkiye, closing its Istanbul-based TV stations that broadcast critical coverage of El-Sisi and by deporting some of its members.
Dr. Selin Nasi, a visiting fellow at the London School of Economics’ European Institute, thinks that the upcoming visit marks the culmination of a long and tumultuous diplomatic process between Turkiye and Egypt that gained significant momentum after the visit by Sameh Shoukry, Egypt’s foreign minister at the time, to Turkiye in the wake of the earthquake disaster in February 2023.
“Relations between the two countries had soured over Turkiye’s support for the pro-Muslim Brotherhood government of Mohamed Morsi, which was overthrown in 2013. Following the Arab Spring in 2010, Turkiye shifted toward an ideology-driven foreign policy, hoping to position itself as a regional leader by supporting pro-Muslim Brotherhood movements,” she told Arab News.
However, for Nasi, this approach strained relations with Egypt and several Gulf countries, which viewed the Muslim Brotherhood as a significant threat to their stability.
“Over the years, Turkiye and Egypt found themselves on opposing sides of various regional issues, including disputes over gas exploration in the Eastern Mediterranean and political conflicts in Libya,” she said.
“When Egypt signed a maritime deal with Greece that same year, it did not go unnoticed by Ankara that the deal respected Turkiye’s maritime claims. Although Turkiye continues to support the Tripoli-based government in Libya, its recent announcement to reopen the consulate in Benghazi suggests a potential shift in its Libyan policy. With escalating tensions in Libya over control of the central bank and oil resources, the issue will surely be a topic of discussion in the leaders’ upcoming meeting.”
Nasi thinks that El-Sisi’s visit will also have some repercussions over the two countries’ humanitarian efforts in Gaza.
“Since the outbreak of the war in Gaza, Egypt has become increasingly important for Turkiye,” she said. “As Turkiye’s relations with Israel have significantly deteriorated, Egypt has emerged as a critical gateway for delivering aid to Gaza. Until today, Turkiye has sent seven ships carrying humanitarian aid supplies to Gaza via Egypt’s Al Arish port.”
As both countries have a shared concern over the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and support the Palestinians’ right to an independent state, Nasi thinks that Ankara’s support for Hamas — which is considered the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood — remains a major point of divergence.
“It seems that Turkiye and Egypt have reached an understanding to ‘agree to disagree,’ provided that Egypt would prevent the infiltration of Hamas affiliates across its borders, keep Hamas at bay and under control,” she said.
The two countries are also working to increase bilateral trade to $15 billion annually in the next five years from, about $6 billion at present.
Potential avenues of cooperation in the fields of liquefied natural gas and nuclear energy as well as expansion of the existing free trade agreement and resuming of the freight shipping between the Turkish port of Mersin and Alexandria in Egypt are also on the table.
The timing of the visit is also significant, experts note.
“By projecting an image of solidarity over their shared commitment to the Palestinian cause, Turkiye seeks to compensate for its exclusion from the ongoing diplomatic negotiations. From Ankara’s perspective, this diplomatic engagement aims to strengthen ties with Egypt and reaffirm Turkiye’s role in regional politics,” Nasi said.
According to Pinar Akpinar, assistant professor at the department of international affairs and Gulf Studies Center at Qatar University, Turkiye’s rapprochement process with Egypt should not be viewed in isolation from its broader regional policy.
“Simultaneously, Turkiye has also been engaging in rapprochement with Syria, where it has proposed four conditions for peace. Turkiye plays a significant role in promoting regional stability amid rising tensions in the Middle East,” she told Arab News.
“Turkiye is keenly aware that the possibility of an all-out war looms on the horizon, making stability a crucial objective to prevent such an outcome,” Akpinar added.
“Furthermore, both Turkiye and Egypt have been instrumental in Gaza, particularly in humanitarian efforts and the ongoing mediation process led by Qatar. They can establish a joint mediation committee, organize a regional peace summit, create a joint reconstruction fund and develop renewable energy systems in Gaza. They are already active but can work in a more coordinated fashion. Together, Turkiye, Egypt and Qatar have emerged as key actors in fostering regional stability,” she said.
