Sisi's visit solidifies a new phase in Egypt and Turkey's ties

The Turkish leadership’s warm embrace of Egyptian President Abdel Fatah el-Sisi in Ankara last week was illustrative of how certain bilateral relationships in the Middle East have drastically changed course in recent years.

Not long ago, Egypt-Turkey relations were extremely tense. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan used to refer to his Egyptian counterpart as a “tyrant”, “dictator”, and “murderer”.

As recently as 2020, there was reason for concern about a possible Egyptian-Turkish military confrontation in Libya. Meanwhile, Cairo spent years depicting Turkey as a state sponsor of terrorism because of Ankara’s relationships with various Islamist organisations and causes in the region, chiefly the Muslim Brotherhood.

Problems in bilateral affairs became very serious in the aftermath of Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi’s 2013 ouster. The Turkish and Egyptian governments had different reactions to a host of issues in the region, from the Syrian crisis to the 2017-21 blockade of Qatar and Libya’s civil war.

At the same time, Ankara’s various forms of support for many of Egypt’s exiled Islamists following the 2013 coup and the fact that many Egyptians hailed the failed 2016 Turkish coup plot both contributed to high levels of friction between the two countries.

Yet, since 2020/21, Cairo and Ankara have put much work into burying the hatchet and moving ahead with a new phase in relations. Both governments see the benefits of rapprochement.

Egypt, with its economy in horrible shape and having repaired relations with Doha, began eyeing possible gains from better relations with Turkey in the domains of business, commercial, trade, tourism, and investment.

Turkey, for its part, realised the price it had paid in the Arab world for supporting Muslim Brotherhood-linked groups and began shifting toward a less ideological and more pragmatic foreign policy that put more energy into trade, diplomacy, and soft power.

In practice, this has entailed Ankara taking steps to improve relations with Egypt along with other Arab states such as the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Syria.

Turkey’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan attending an Arab League ministerial meeting on 10 September speaks to the success of Turkish efforts to mend fences with Arab states which had major problems with Ankara’s pro-Muslim Brotherhood orientation in the post-Arab Spring period. Indeed, the last time a Turkish foreign minister attended such a meeting of the group was 13 years ago.

Important events in Egypt-Turkey relations over the past two years included Sisi and Erdogan shaking hands in Doha at the FIFA World Cup in November 2022, Egypt’s top diplomat visiting southern Turkey from Syria to show solidarity after the devastating earthquake on 6 February 2023, the countries restoring official ties and reappointing their ambassadors in July 2023, and then Sisi and Erdogan meeting again a year ago at the G20 summit in India.

The visit which Sisi paid to Turkey earlier this month spoke to how far Cairo and Ankara have come in their normalisation process. Building on Erdogan’s milestone visit to Egypt in February, Sisi’s visit to Ankara - the first paid by an Egyptian president since Morsi came to the Turkish capital in September 2012 - was of tremendous significance to the future of bilateral relations.

There are “security and financial advantages” for both Egypt and Turkey that can come from warmer bilateral relations, explained Mirette Mabrouk, who leads the Egypt program at the Middle East Institute, in an interview with The New Arab.

“They have already said that they will try to up trade to USD 15 billion, almost three times the current figure, which is relevant considering that both countries need to up their exports. Also, they have said that they will cooperate on Libya, and the Eastern Mediterranean, both formerly huge points of contention between the two," she added.

When Sisi was in Turkey on 4 September, he and Erdogan signed 17 cooperation agreements across many domains, including energy, transport, education, infrastructure, and health. Sisi and Erdogan both said that their goal is to grow annual commercial exchanges between the two countries by 50 percent by 2029.

Finding common ground on international issues

A host of conflicts and disputes in African countries - chiefly Ethiopia-Somalia tensions, Libya, and Sudan - incentivise Egypt and Turkey to improve their relations and cooperate where there is common ground.

Yet, the situation in Palestine seemed to be the international issue that Sisi and Erdogan focused on most while meeting this month in Ankara. The two leaders discussed the Israeli war on Gaza and intensifying Israeli violence in the West Bank, which recently escalated with Tel Aviv launching a military campaign.

Experts believe that the Gaza war is serving to bring Cairo and Ankara closer. Matthew Bryza, the former US ambassador to Azerbaijan, holds that stronger Egypt-Turkey relations could help wind down Israel’s war on Gaza.

“Turkey has important relations with Hamas and has, since the beginning of the war, advocated for a guarantor solution to the political future of Gaza whereby countries … like Egypt … Qatar, and Turkey … would have rights and responsibilities to guarantee that the agreements are implemented akin to the rights that Turkey, Greece, and the United Kingdom have with regard to Cyprus,” explained Bryza.

“For better or for worse, I think Turkey manoeuvred itself out of being able to play that mediating role with the very intense and harsh public reaction across Turkey and then also by the top political leaders - President Erdogan - against Israel and the harsh criticism of Israel as being genocidal, committing war crimes, and in fact [with Turkey] trying to join the suit at the International Court of Justice that South Africa has brought against Israel, accusing it of genocide,” the former US diplomat and Turkey expert told TNA.

Nonetheless, Bryza believes that eventually a moment will come whereby all concerned parties will realise how “maybe there is a role at that point for Turkey to bring along Hamas, so good relations between Turkey and Egypt would only make that sort of an outcome easier to achieve, meaning with Turkey playing either a role in the mediation and/or possibly being a guarantor if there’s an agreement on the political future of Gaza that involves guarantor countries”.

Yet, some analysts maintain a level of scepticism about the Egypt-Turkey rapprochement being able to do much for Palestinians in Gaza.

Speaking to TNA, Maged Mandour, an Egyptian political analyst, said that despite “general alignment [between Cairo and Ankara] on the position to the end the [Gaza] war” Egypt and Turkey have “limited leverage on Israel”. Therefore, he assesses that any changes in Cairo-Ankara relations are “unlikely” to significantly impact the situation in Gaza.

Drones

In February, Fidan stated that Turkey had agreed to sell Egypt drones. Despite such a deal not yet being finalised, it is clear that the Egyptians are interested in Turkey’s defence industry, highlighted by Egyptian delegations visiting Turkish defence companies.

When Sisi and Erdogan met this month, the two leaders addressed the possibility of Ankara selling drones to Cairo, according to some sources.

It is necessary to see a potential Turkish drone procurement to Egypt within the context of “Turkey’s growing role as a key supplier in the region’s defence industry, offering a critical alternative to global competitors for countries in the region,” explained Gokhan Ereli, the Gulf Studies Coordinator at ORSAM (an Ankara-based think tank), in an interview with TNA.

“Turkey’s capacity to provide UAVs to Egypt, or the broader increase in defence and security cooperation, signals a growing partnership and alignment on regional issues. This development strengthens both Turkish and Egyptian foreign policy agendas. Just as political normalisation in Turkey-Gulf relations led to consolidation through defence industry cooperation, Turkey-Egypt relations are now poised to enter a similar phase of consolidation, with ties between the two nations set to grow even stronger,” commented Ereli.

Noting the significant role that Turkish drones played in helping the Ukrainians fight after Russia waged its full-scale invasion of their country in February 2022, Bryza told TNA that “Turkey has been quite effective at using the extremely high demand for Bayraktar and other drones as a diplomatic tool, and as a tool of national security”.

The former US ambassador to Azerbaijan explained, “There are many tens of countries around the world that would like to be able to buy those drones and get access to them. I would say that by including drone sales to Egypt, Turkey is making clear that it’s considering Egypt increasingly as a security partner rather than a problem”.

Energy and the road ahead

Following Sisi’s milestone visit to Ankara this month, Egypt and Turkey seem to have good reason to be optimistic about the future of their bilateral relationship. There are many opportunities for the two countries to improve ties in ways that can lead to myriad economic benefits down the road.

The domain of energy will be important to the future of Egypt-Turkey relations. For Turkey, a potential benefit from better relations with Egypt would be the “possible Egyptian realignment away from the Greek position on maritime borders and possible gas exploration in the Eastern Mediterranean,” Mandour told TNA.

“Turkey has shown success in exploration and production of oil and natural gas in the Black Sea. It could bring some of that expertise down to Egypt’s section of the Mediterranean Sea. Also, hopefully there will be a way for the two countries to rectify their differing claims of exclusive economic zones which have been the source of political tension,” offered Bryza.

With Egypt having belonged to an anti-Turkey camp on Eastern Mediterranean issues, Ankara’s potential ability to encourage Cairo to shift its position in favour of focusing on the mutual benefits that could be realised through cooperation in the gas sector will be important to the future of diplomatic ties.

Successful repairing of bilateral relations, which will require letting go of past issues and making solid commitments to compromises, can lead Cairo and Ankara to find more common ground and advance both Egypt and Turkey’s respective national interests.

As Mabrouk told TNA, “In a troubled region, cordial relations make for mutual strength”.

Giorgio Cafiero is the CEO of Gulf State Analytics.

Follow him on Twitter: @GiorgioCafiero