Türkiye, Egypt vow to boost ties after years of rift

ANKARA/CAIRO, Sept. 4 (Xinhua) — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Egyptian counterpart, Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi, vowed on Wednesday to enhance bilateral relations during the first visit by an Egyptian president to Türkiye in 12 years.
“We will carry forward our multidimensional relations with Egypt with a win-win approach,” Erdogan said at a joint press conference with Sisi in the capital Ankara.
During Sisi’s visit, the two leaders co-chaired the inaugural meeting of the High-Level Strategic Cooperation Council, and ministers of the two countries signed a series of agreements.
“We are moving steadily towards our goal of increasing our trade volume to 15 billion (U.S.) dollars in the next five years,” Erdogan said, adding that the two leaders affirmed their willingness to improve relations in various areas, including trade, defense, health and energy.
He noted that Türkiye is also ready to develop cooperation with Egypt in the fields of natural gas and nuclear energy.
Emphasizing Türkiye and Egypt’s contribution to regional peace and stability, Erdogan said the two sides had agreed to conduct regular consultations to resolve regional issues, especially the Gaza conflict.
Sisi, for his part, said his first visit to Türkiye would pave the way to “a new phase” of cooperation and integration between the two countries.
“Today, we witnessed the signing of a number of memoranda of understanding that aim to establish a new institutional framework for cooperation between our two countries,” he said.
The two leaders had also agreed to work on preventing a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, he added.
The visit of Sisi follows Erdogan’s trip to Cairo in February, signaling a thaw in bilateral ties after years of hostility.
Relations between Türkiye and Egypt soured after the ouster of former Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi in July 2013 and the subsequent banning of his Türkiye-backed Muslim Brotherhood group, which led both countries to expel each other’s ambassadors. ■