Egyptian President el-Sissi makes his first visit to Turkey as relations thaw

ANKARA, Turkey -- Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi kicked off Wednesday his first official visit to Turkey since the two regional powers ended years of tensions.

El-Sissi and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan were set to discuss bilateral relations, the war in Gaza and escalating Middle East tensions. They are also expected to oversee the signing of more than a dozen cooperation agreements to strengthen the relationship between their nations, including in energy, defense and tourism.

In February, Erdogan made his first visit to Egypt in more than a decade after the two countries agreed to mend ties and reappointed ambassadors. Erdogan declared that they wanted to boost bilateral trade to $15 billion, from the current $10 billion.

Relations between Egypt and Turkey, a long-time backer of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood group, soured after the Egyptian military ousted President Mohammed Morsi, who hailed from the Brotherhood, amid mass protests against his divisive one year of rule. Egypt also outlawed the group as a terrorist organization.

In recent years, Ankara has stopped its criticism of el-Sissi’s government, aiming to repair strained relations with Egypt and other Arab nations while seeking investments during an economic downturn. In November 2022, Erdogan and el-Sissi were photographed shaking hands at the World Cup in Qatar.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry then traveled to Turkey in 2023 to show solidarity with the country after a deadly earthquake struck parts of southern Turkey and Syria.

It is el-Sissi’s first visit to Turkey since he was elected president in 2014, a year after he led the military’s overthrow of Morsi. El-Sissi will be accompanied by a large delegation of officials and businessmen, Egyptian media reported.

Erdogan welcomed el-Sissi at the steps of his airplane at the airport in Ankara, a rare gesture accorded to visiting statesmen. The Egyptian president later arrived at the Turkish presidential palace, escorted by a mounted color guard for the official welcoming ceremony.

El-Sissi said on Facebook that his trip to Turkey and Erdogan’s February visit to Cairo “mirror the joint will to start a new era of friendship and cooperation between Egypt and Turkey.”

Egypt, together with Qatar and the United States, a key Israel ally, has been working for months to try and broker a cease-fire and the return of the remaining 100 hostages held by the Palestinian militant Hamas group. The negotiations have since stalled, following new Israeli demands.

Egypt opposes any Israeli presence along the Gaza side of its border, claiming it would threaten the decades-old peace treaty between the two countries, a cornerstone of regional stability. Hamas had asked to have Turkey added as a guarantor in the cease-fire talks, but the proposal was not accepted.

The war began with Hamas’ Oct. 7 assault on Israel in which the militants killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took around 250 hostages. The overall Palestinian death toll in Gaza has now surpassed 40,000 people, according to the Health Ministry in Gaza, and a quarter of the territory’s residents are starving.

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Associated Press writer Samy Magdy in Cairo contributed to this report.