After more than a decade of diplomatic ice age, Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry visited Syria on Monday. With the visit, Egypt shows its solidarity with Syria after the severe earthquake in the Syrian-Turkish border area, the Syrian state news agency SANA reports. Shoukry then traveled on to Turkey.
Only on Sunday did Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad receive parliamentary speakers from several Arab countries, including Egyptian parliament speaker Hanafy El Gebali, and on Monday he met with Egypt’s foreign minister. Unlike some other Arab countries, Cairo has never completely cut ties with Damascus.
Relationships on hold for years
Ankara almost completely cut ties with Cairo after Islamist President Mohamed Morsi was ousted in 2013 by the Egyptian army led by al-Sisi. Morsi, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, was a close ally of Erdogan. Relations had only recently improved slightly. In November, Erdogan and Al-Sisi shook hands for the first time at the World Cup in Qatar.
In this respect, Shoukry’s visit to Turkey was a special sign. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu expressly thanked his Egyptian counterpart for solidarity during the devastating earthquake in southeastern Turkey on Monday. “Friendship and brotherhood are seen in difficult times. In these difficult times, the Egyptian state and the Egyptian people have once again shown that they are the brothers of Turkey and the Turkish people,” Cavusoglu said at a joint press conference in Adana, southern Turkey.
Source: Krone
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