AnkaraEgyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi will make his first official visit to Turkey on Wednesday since taking power, after the two regional powers ended years of tensions.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Syrian President Al Sisi will discuss bilateral relations, the conflict in Gaza and escalating tensions in the Middle East, among other issues. They are also expected to oversee the signing of more than a dozen cooperation agreements to strengthen the relationship between their nations, including in the fields of energy, defense and tourism.
In February, Erdogan made his first visit to Egypt in more than a decade after both countries agreed to repair ties and renew their ambassadors. Erdogan said the two countries wanted to increase bilateral trade from the current $10 billion to $15 billion.
Relations between Egypt and Turkey, a long-time supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood group, soured after the Egyptian military ousted Islamist President Mohammed Morsi amid mass protests against his divisive year in office. Morsi belonged to the Muslim Brotherhood group, which has been outlawed as a terrorist organization in Egypt.
In recent years, Ankara has moved away from criticizing el-Sisi’s government, aiming to repair strained relations with Egypt and other Arab nations while seeking investment during an economic crisis. In November 2022, Erdogan and el-Sisi were photographed shaking hands at the World Cup in Qatar.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry then traveled to Turkey in 2023 to show solidarity with the country after a deadly earthquake hit parts of southern Turkey and Syria.
This is El-Sisi’s first visit to Turkey since he was elected president in 2014, a year after he led the military’s overthrow of Morsi. El-Sisi will be accompanied by a large delegation of officials and businessmen, Egyptian media reported.
Egypt, along with Qatar and the United States, a key Israeli ally, has been working for months to try to broker a ceasefire and the return of the remaining 100 hostages held by Hamas. Negotiations have dragged on since Israel put forward new demands, including permanent Israeli control of the Philadelphia corridor between Gaza and Egypt and a second corridor that would run through the Palestinian enclave.
Egypt has accused the Israeli prime minister of obstructing negotiations. It opposes any Israeli presence on the Gaza side of its border, saying it would jeopardize the decades-old peace treaty between the two countries, a cornerstone of regional stability.
Hamas has tried unsuccessfully to have Türkiye included as a guarantor in the ceasefire negotiations.
The war began with Hamas’s assault on Israel on Oct. 7, in which militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapped some 250. The total Palestinian death toll in Gaza has now surpassed 40,000, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, and a quarter of the territory’s residents are starving.
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