After years of diplomatic ice age and immediately after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s election victory, Egypt and Turkey want to improve their relations. Both countries plan to send ambassadors to the other country again, the Egyptian presidency announced. That’s what ruler Abdel Fattah al-Sisi decided with Erdoğan when he congratulated him on his election victory.
Relations between Cairo and Ankara have been strained for years. The political dispute escalated in 2013 after the Turkish government repeatedly described the ousting of the then Islamist President Mohammed Morsi by the Egyptian army as an illegitimate “military coup”. Ambassadors from both countries were withdrawn in 2013. Both states also support different sides in the Libyan war. They also argued about suspected natural gas deposits in the eastern Mediterranean.
Politically, however, the two countries have recently become closer again. Egypt’s Foreign Minister Samih Shukri visited Turkey after the devastating earthquakes in February. His Turkish colleague Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu visited Cairo in March. Çavuşoğlu said at the time that a meeting between Erdoğan and al-Sisi was also being planned.