Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan held face-to-face talks with his Egyptian counterpart Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on the sidelines of the G20 summit in New Delhi on Sunday, following a decade-long rift between the two countries, Agence France-Presse reported.
Images broadcast live by Turkish television channels showed the two leaders held talks, accompanied by several members of their delegations.
Erdoğan and al-Sisi, who had been sparring since the Egyptian military’s 2013 ouster in Cairo of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi, personally backed by Erdoğan, met in November in Qatar for the first time during the opening ceremony of the World Cup.
Their picture showed a sincere handshake between the two leaders.
Erdoğan was criticized by opposition parties at home for his change of stance on al-Sisi given the fact that he said in early 2019 that he wouldn’t meet with al-Sisi until Egypt’s political prisoners –- 65,000 people, according to human rights groups — had been released.
The opposition interpreted it as a strategic move by the Turkish president ahead of the presidential and parliamentary elections, which were held in May, resulting Erdoğan and his party’s victory.