Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan will embark on a two-day visit to Egypt on Sunday at the invitation of his Egyptian counterpart, Badr Abdelatty, the state-run Anadolu news agency reported, citing diplomatic sources.
Abdelatty was appointed foreign minister last month in the newly formed government. The upcoming visit will be Fidan’s first official meeting with his Egyptian counterpart.
During their meeting Fidan and Abdelatty will discuss preparations for the first high-level meeting of the Strategic Cooperation Council to be held during Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi’s upcoming visit to Turkey.
They will also assess the current status of nearly 20 agreements to be signed.
The talks will cover bilateral political, economic and cultural relations as well as current regional developments. Long-term cooperation opportunities in the fields of energy, health, tourism and the defense industry will also be discussed.
The main topics of the visit will include humanitarian aid to Gaza and growing regional tensions. Developments in Libya, Sudan and Somalia will also be assessed.
Fidan is expected to visit the Rafah border crossing with Gaza and inspect an Egyptian Red Crescent logistics center that handles humanitarian aid shipments from Turkey to Gaza.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who once labeled Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi a “murderer, oppressor and putschist” for his role in the 2013 military coup that ousted the Muslim Brotherhood from power in Egypt, called Sisi “my brother” during his visit to Cairo after an 11-year hiatus.
This diplomatic U-turn comes after a decade of strained relations following the coup, which Erdoğan strongly opposed. The coup, which overthrew then-president Mohamed Morsi, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood and an ally of Erdoğan, had caused a deep rift between Ankara and Cairo. Erdoğan’s government had strongly supported the Muslim Brotherhood and was often at odds with the Egyptian government’s crackdown on the organization.
Turkey’s rapprochement with Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the UAE, countries that regard the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization, has occurred in parallel with restrictions on the Islamist group’s freedom of movement and ability to operate in the country. Turkey called on Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated TV stations to limit their critical coverage of el-Sisi and shut down at least one of the stations during Erdoğan’s visit to Jeddah last year.
Turkey refused to renew the residence permits of members or people linked to the group to persuade them to leave the country, reportedly arrested some of the leaders and is considering deporting many others at the request of the Egyptian president, perhaps to a third country.
Ankara has been trying to repair its broken relations with el-Sisi since 2020.
The first signs of a thaw came in May 2021, when a Turkish delegation visited Egypt to discuss possible normalization.
In November 2022 Erdoğan and el-Sisi shook hands in Qatar, which the Egyptian presidency heralded as a new beginning in their relations.
After Turkey was hit by two devastating earthquakes in February 2023, the two heads of state spoke on the phone.
The normalization of relations was completed by the mutual appointment of ambassadors in July 2023.