Turkey to send team to Egypt to discuss broken ties: AKP official

SAKARYA – Anadolu Agency

Following Turkish steps to mend broken ties with both Russia and Israel, Ankara will soon send a team to Egypt to discuss ways to ease tensions with Cairo, according to a leading figure from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). 

“Insallah [God willing] ties with Egypt will also ease,” said AKP deputy leader Şaban Dişli, while speaking at an event held by a railway trade union in the northwestern province of Sakarya on June 6 to celebrate Eid al-Fitr. 

“Thus, inshallah we should stop the blood spilling in Syria due to the easing [of tensions] in the region,” he said, adding that a team would be sent to Egypt after the Eid al-Fitr holiday. 

His remarks came one day after President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said the steps taken for a possible reconciliation with Egypt would be different than the processes that saw Turkey begin to thaw relations with Russia and Israel. 

Ties between Turkey and Egypt ruptured in 2013 after the military ousted elected Islamist Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi, a close ally of the AKP government.

 “The context with Egypt is different from the approaches undertaken with Russia and Israel,” Erdoğan told reporters after the performing prayers in Istanbul on the first day of Eid al-Fitr.

“We have no problems with the Egyptian people. The problem with Egypt is an issue with its administration, particularly with its ruler,” Erdoğan added.

Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said July 3 that he was ready to meet with his Egyptian counterpart to discuss political ties, adding that Egypt must take some positive steps with regard to political prisoners.

“My statement that ‘I am ready to meet with Egypt’ is nothing new. But there is a fact that Egypt cannot go on like this. Egypt has to take positive steps. I can of course talk about these issues with my [Egyptian] counterpart. There is no problem in this,” Çavuşoğlu told TRT in an interview.