Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan met face-to-face with his Egyptian counterpart Abdel Fattah al-Sissi on Sunday on the sidelines of the G20 summit in New Delhi, sealing the end of a decade of estrangement between the two countries. According to images broadcast live by Turkish television channels, the two leaders spoke in the presence of several members of their delegations. Turkey announced last March the re-establishment of its diplomatic contacts with Cairo.
Relations between Ankara and Cairo were abruptly severed in 2013 after Abdel Fattah al-Sissi came to power. After he removed Mohamed Morsi, Egypt’s first democratically elected president, who was from the Muslim Brotherhood and a major ally of Turkey, President Erdogan reiterated that he will “never” speak to “anyone one like” Abdel Fattah al-Sissi.
However, the day after the earthquake of February 6, 2023, which left more than 50,000 dead in Turkey, the two officials spoke on the phone. A few months earlier, in November 2022, they even exchanged a handshake in the stands of the Football World Cup in Qatar, another country with which Egypt recently reconnected after accusing it of proximity to the Brotherhood Muslims.
