Türkiye’s top diplomat to attend Arab League meeting

ANKARA

Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan will attend the Arab League meeting and address his colleagues on the situation in Gaza, the Turkish diplomatic sources have said, in another sign of mending strained ties between Türkiye and the Arab League.

According to diplomatic sources, Fidan was invited to attend the Arab League meeting that will take place in Cairo on Sept. 10. Foreign ministers of the Arab League regularly meet twice annually, in March and September.

Fidan’s address will cover both Türkiye-Arab League ties and the latest situation in Gaza, which has been under an Israeli offensive since October 2023.

The developing ties between Türkiye and the Arab countries offer new opportunities to bring about stability and peace to the region through concrete projects and cooperation in different fields, the sources recalled.

“In this frame, Türkiye is opting to improve the institutional relations with the Arab League and increase the coordination with it. The invitation extended to the Foreign Minister reflects the growing interest in Türkiye’s role in the region,” the sources underlined.

This invitation also constitutes a new signal from the Arab League that a new term in ties with Türkiye has begun. Since 2018, the Arab League had adopted resolutions against Türkiye with claims that the latter was interfering in the internal affairs of some Arab countries.

The normalization of ties between Türkiye and Egypt as well as some other Arab nations has also helped to thaw relations between Türkiye and the Arab League. The group has softened its language against Türkiye and dissolved an anti-Türkiye committee.

The meeting comes after a historic visit by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to Ankara upon President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s invitation. The two countries signed 17 agreements and a joint communiqué that outlines the growing scope of the bilateral ties.

Türkiye and Egypt had cut ties in 2013 after the latter’s army toppled the country’s first democratically elected president, Mohammed Morsi.