Erdoğan and Egypt's Sisi to meet: Turkish FM Çavuşoğlu

Türkiye's top diplomat said Saturday that President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi would meet to mark the end of a decade of estrangement between the two countries.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, speaking alongside his Egyptian counterpart Sameh Shoukry during a visit to Cairo, said Ankara wanted "to restore diplomatic relations between the two countries at the highest level".

Shoukry said there was a "political will coming from the presidents of our two countries... seeking to normalise relations".

Çavuşoğlu's visit follows a trip by Shoukry to Türkiye last month to show solidarity after the devastating earthquake that claimed tens of thousands of lives in Türkiye and neighbouring Syria.

"It is possible that we will disagree in the future, but we will do everything to avoid breaking our relations again," Çavuşoğlu said.

Relations ran into trouble after the 2013 ouster of Egypt's democratically-elected president Mohamed Morsi, an ally of Turkey.

In November, Sisi and Erdogan shook hands in Qatar, in what the Egyptian presidency heralded as a new beginning in their ties, and the two leaders then spoke by telephone after the February 6 earthquake.

Çavuşoğlu on Saturday said the meeting between Erdoğan and Sisi would take place "after the Turkish elections", including the presidential vote slated for May 14.

While diplomatic exchanges were once frosty, business never stopped: in 2022, Turkey was the largest importer of Egyptian products totaling $4 billion.