Active days in post-earthquake diplomacy: Egypt’s high-level visit to Turkey

Egyptian Foreign Minister Semih Sukru will travel to Turkey today for a post-earthquake support visit.

In a statement issued yesterday, the Foreign Ministry announced that Şükrü will visit Adana and the port of Mersin, where an Egyptian aid ship will arrive, during his visit to show solidarity and convey condolences.

Before his visit to Turkey, the Egyptian foreign minister traveled to Syria, which has been affected by the earthquakes this morning. Shukri, the first Egyptian foreign minister to visit the country since the Syrian war broke out in 2011, was greeted by his Syrian counterpart, Faisal Mikdad, at the Damascus airport.

The visit was the latest step in the rapprochement between the Syrian government and the Arab countries in the recent period. After the earthquakes, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Sisi phoned both President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Syrian leader Bashar Assad and conveyed his condolences.

ERDOĞAN-SISI MEETING WAS TALKED FOR DAYS

Steps to normalize relations between Turkey and Egypt had been on the agenda in recent months. President Erdogan shook hands with Sisi, to whom he had earlier told: “I will not sit at the same table and legitimize the coup plotters,” in Qatar, where he went to attend the opening of the FIFA World Cup in November . This handshake was the highest level meeting between the two countries after 9 years.

Erdogan said in a statement at the time: “We had a limited meeting with Mr. Sisi for half an hour and 45 minutes. Subsequently, within the framework of the information and news that I received, he was very happy about this meeting, and we conveyed the same wish for happiness. Now the process has started, a process will continue with our ministers”.