ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkey has resumed diplomatic talks with Egypt and wants further cooperation, Turkish leaders said on Friday, after years of tension since the Egyptian army overthrew a president of the Muslim Brotherhood near Ankara.
Any thawing in the ties between the two local power stations could have consequences in the Middle East, where Cairo and Ankara sought to influence events in different hotspots and end up in a Mediterranean maritime dispute from opposing sides.
Two Egyptian intelligence sources said Turkey had proposed a meeting to discuss co-operation, but suggested that the contacts were only preliminary – a view later supported by a report on Egypt’s state-run MENA news agency.
President Tayyip Erdogan said the contacts “were not at the highest level but just below the highest level. We hope we can continue this process with Egypt much stronger.”
Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu is quoted as saying by the state-run Anadolu news agency: “We have contacts with Egypt, both at the level of intelligence and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs … Contacts at diplomatic level have begun.”
Relations with Cairo have been frozen since Egypt’s army ousted Mohammed Mursi, Egypt’s first democratically elected president and an ally of Erdogan, after protests in 2013.
An Egyptian security official on Thursday received a call from a Turkish intelligence official outlining Turkey’s desire for a meeting in Cairo to discuss economic, political and diplomatic cooperation, Egyptian sources said.
The Egyptian official welcomed the call and promised to respond as soon as possible, Egyptian sources said.
The call follows unofficial contacts between Egyptian and Turkish security officials in which communication between the two parties is discussed. According to the sources, the issue of maritime borders, a source of tension between Turkey and other eastern Mediterranean countries, has not been raised.
The state-run MENA news agency in Egypt reported that there is nothing that can be described between the two countries as ‘resumption of diplomatic communication’, citing an official source.
It added that Egypt expects any country with which it has normal relations to ‘adhere to the principles of international law and good neighborliness’.
Rebuilding trust will be difficult. In addition to the tension over the expulsion of Mursi and Mediterranean disputes, Egypt’s Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said last week that the Arab League had expressed its “categorical rejection” of Turkish military intervention in Syria, Iraq and Libya.
GOLF STATE
Cavusoglu’s comments come as Turkey seeks to restore tense relations with various regional powers. He said on Friday that Ankara would be reciprocal if Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates took “positive steps” to overcome recent tensions.
Ties with Riyadh were strained over the assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul in 2018 and a duel between Turkey’s ally Qatar and other Arab Gulf states. Trade collapsed under informal boycott by Saudi companies.
Turkey was also at odds with the United Arab Emirates over the conflict in Libya, and both countries accused each other of disrupting the stability of the region.
“There is no reason why our ties with Saudi Arabia should not be rectified. If they take positive steps, we will take positive steps. The same goes for the United Arab Emirates. We do not want to fight with anyone,” Cavusoglu said.
Khashoggi was assassinated and disbanded by Saudi agents in 2018, and a U.S. intelligence report found that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had approved the operation.
“We have never blamed the Saudi leadership,” Cavusoglu said. At the time, Erdogan said the operation was ordered at the “highest levels” of the Saudi government. Erdogan spoke with King Salman in November and they agreed to resolve differences through dialogue, the Turkish presidency said.
(Reporting by Tuvan Gumrukcu in Ankara and Mohamed Ahmed Hassan in Cairo; Additional reporting by Omar Fahmy; Edited by Dominic Evans, William Maclean)