Egypt’s Sisi to pay first visit to Turkey as ties with Erdogan warm
Turkey and Egypt are expected to ink several cooperation deals during the visit, which will seal the end of more than a decade-long hostilities.
ANKARA — Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi is expected to pay his first visit to Turkey in two weeks amid ongoing rapprochement and after more than a decade of hostilities.
Sisi will travel to Turkey on Sept. 4, according to unconfirmed reports by Turkey’s Haberturk television and other media outlets.
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan visited Cairo earlier this month and met with Sisi and his Egyptian counterpart, Badr Abdelatty. Speaking at a joint press conference with Fidan on Aug. 5, Abdelatty said the two sides discussed the steps to be taken to ensure Sisi's visit is “as productive as possible.”
He added that the two countries plan to ink several cooperation deals in fields from energy to tourism as well as hold the first meeting of the new strategic cooperation council.
The two countries elevated their ties to a “strategic cooperation” level during Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s visit to Egypt in February, the first of its kind since 2012. The visit was described by both Sisi and Erdogan as the beginning of a “new chapter” in Turkey-Egypt ties.
Following the overthrow of the country’s Muslim Brotherhood-led government in 2013, Erdogan had vowed never to shake hands with Sisi, calling him a “brutal killer.” The U-turn came in early 2021, when Turkey embarked on a major foreign policy charm offensive to mend ties with its former regional foes in a bid to overcome its isolation in the region and draw funds to its beleaguered economy.
The process saw the normalization of Turkey’s ties with Egypt as well as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, largely broken due to Ankara’s support for the Muslim Brotherhood, which has been branded as a terrorist organization by several regional capitals. Among the three countries, Turkey’s normalization with Egypt took the longest.
The two countries exchanged ambassadors in July 2023, and since then, repeated reports of Sisi’s impending visit to Turkey proved to be wrong.
The rapprochement accelerated during the ongoing war in Gaza, as disagreements between Israel on the one hand and Cairo and Ankara on the other. Gaza is expected to be one of the agenda items during Sisi’s visit.
