DAMASCUS (AP/Reuters) – Egypt’s foreign minister Monday met with Syrian President Bashar Assad in Damascus.
Sameh Shoukry is Egypt’s most senior official to visit Syria since 2011, a day after Cairo’s parliament speaker, Hanafy el-Gebaly, and a delegation of top Arab lawmakers visited Assad in a push to forge ties with Syria.
Several Arab countries began to rekindle ties with Assad in recent years, the process intensified after this month’s massive earthquake that struck Turkey and Syria and killed more than 47,000 people, including over 1,400 people in government-controlled areas of Syria and more than 2,400 in the militant-held northwest. The quake further compounded the war-torn country’s deep economic crisis due to the Western sanctions and the conflict backed by foreign powers.
Egypt, Jordan Saudi Arabia are among U.S. allies in the Middle East that have delivered quake aid to Syria. The United Arab Emirates also sent aid-loaded planes, along with Syria’s key allies Russia and Iran.
Shoukry told the media after meeting Assad and also his Syrian counterpart, Faisal Mekdad, that Egypt has thus far sent 1,500 tons of humanitarian aid.
He also conveyed Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi’s greetings to the Syrian leader, and called for further development of long-established and friendly relations between the two countries
Shoukry described relations between Cairo and Damascus as essential for protection of the Arab world against potential threats and challenges, stressing that Egypt will always support any initiative that could help Syria and would serve the interests of all Syrians.
Assad, for his part, underlined the historical significance of Syrian-Egyptian relations, emphasizing that promotion of diplomatic ties among Arab countries will actually improve living standards of Arabs.
The development comes only a day after several Arab parliament speakers and high-level legislators arrived in Damascus to restore Syria’s membership in the Arab League, which was suspended nearly 12 years ago due to the country’s foreign-sponsored conflict.
The lawmakers were received by Syria’s Speaker of the People’s Assembly Hammouda Sabbagh, who stated that Syria’s return to the Arab diplomatic fold is crucial for any joint Arab action to confront current challenges and crises.
After Syria, Egypt’s foreign minister arrived in Turkey on Monday to show solidarity with the quake-hit country, in the first high-level visit from Egypt since relations between Ankara and Cairo started to improve after years of friction.
Shoukry traveled to the southern Turkish city of Mersin from Syria -- part of a two-legged trip seeking to convey Egypt’s solidarity with the earthquake-stricken populations.
Diplomatic relations between Ankara and Cairo have been frosty for almost a decade. Erdogan was a close ally of Egypt’s previous president, Mohammed Morsi, who was ousted by the military amid widespread protests in 2013.
Turkey in recent years abandoned its critical approach to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi’s government, as it tried to repair the frayed ties. In November, Erdogan and Sissi were photographed shaking hands during the World Cup in Qatar.