CAIRO (Reuters/Al Jazeera) –
Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu held talks with his Egyptian counterpart in Cairo on Saturday, in the first such visit after a decade of ruptured ties.
Cavusoglu and Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry were expected to discuss a range of bilateral and international issues in a step towards restoring normal relations, according to statements from the two sides.
“I’m very glad that we are taking concrete steps for normalizing relations with Egypt … We will do our best not to rupture our ties again in future,” Cavusoglu said.
Shoukry said: “We will come to talks (on restoring ambassadors) at the appropriate time, depending on the positive results it brings.”
Ties between Turkey and Egypt were severely strained after Egypt’s then-army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi led the ouster of Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohamed Mursi, an ally of Ankara, in 2013. Sisi was elected president the following year.
The two countries have also been at odds in recent years over Libya, where they backed opposing factions in an unresolved conflict, and also over maritime borders in the gas-rich Eastern Mediterranean.
Consultations between senior foreign ministry officials in Ankara and Cairo began in 2021, amid a push by Turkey to ease tensions with Egypt, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia.
As part of that tentative reconciliation, Ankara asked Egyptian opposition TV channels operating in Turkey to moderate their criticism of Egypt.
Last month, Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry visited Turkey in a show of solidarity after the massive earthquakes that killed more than 50,000 people in Turkey and Syria.
Mursi died in prison in Egypt in 2019. Other senior members of the Muslim Brotherhood are jailed in Egypt or have fled abroad, and the group remains outlawed.
Last month, Egypt’s government, which has been struggling to manage an acute shortage of foreign currency, said Turkish companies had committed to $500 million in new investments in Egypt.