A day after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's major victory in the presidential election, its repercussions are already beginning to be felt on the regional situation. Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi quickly called Erdogan to congratulate him on the victory, and together they decided to immediately lift the diplomatic representation and re-exchange ambassadors. The path of Turkish-Egyptian reconciliation has already made great strides after the launch of exploratory talks nearly two years ago, then mutual visits at the level of foreign ministers in recent months, and communication between the leaders of the two countries.
It has recently become clear that Cairo waited until after the Turkish elections; we do not know exactly whether Egypt bet on a political shift in the elections, or whether it preferred to wait so that the exchange of ambassadors before the elections would not be counted as aligning with Erdogan in his electoral battle. However, the situation after Erdogan won a third presidential term pushes towards the culmination of the reconciliation process between the two countries with the step of exchanging ambassadors.
As is well known, since the beginning of its regional turn 3 years ago, Turkey has succeeded in settling its differences with most of the regional powers that have been in confrontation with it over the past decade, such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Although the path of Turkish-Egyptian reconciliation emerged even before the transformation of Ankara's relations with Riyadh and Abu Dhabi, some of the two countries' main contentious issues, such as the situation in Libya, remained an obstacle to accelerating this process.
The recent agreement between Erdogan and Sisi to immediately raise the level of diplomatic exchange does not mean that the dispute over Libya is over, but it does give an indication that the two countries have decided, at least, that it will not remain an obstacle to the normal restoration of relations. In the new positive environment in bilateral relations, it will be easy for the two sides to focus on ways to find common ground to manage bilateral interests in Libya.
Turkey's continued positive engagement in regional issues will not only ensure Turkey's interests in the region, but also serve as an interest for Arab partners who will be able to rely more on Turkey for regional balance.
The main common point on which Egypt and Turkey meet in Libya is the establishment of peace in that country and the reunification of its institutions, a point that seems more attractive to reflect on the advantages of cooperation than the advantages of continuing differences over the situation in Libya.
Egypt is an influential regional power on many issues that concern Turkey, such as the Eastern Mediterranean, Libya and the Middle East in general; the shift in relations from antagonism to cooperation will reflect positively on the regional situation and on the interests of the two countries in these issues. Turkey cannot create a new, integrated situation in its regional policy without addressing all its differences with Egypt. A key aspect of Turkey's interest in reconciliation with Egypt lies in Ankara's efforts to strengthen its position in the geopolitical conflict with Greece and Southern Cyprus in the Eastern Mediterranean.
It also seeks to be an essential part of regional cooperation projects in the field of energy. The completion of the reconciliation between Turkey and Egypt will have significant implications for regional geopolitics given the importance of these two forces. Certainly, these effects will be positive and will push towards strengthening regional stability and moving relations between Middle East actors to a more productive level, in terms of collective action to resolve chronic regional issues such as Libya and Syria.
However, the Syrian problem remains one of the major obstacles in Turkey's way of zeroing its problems with its southern regional neighborhood. It is unlikely that we will see an immediate development in the course of Turkish-Syrian negotiations in the foreseeable future. The logical belief that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who seemed in a hurry to achieve a breakthrough in the dialogue with the Syrian regime before the elections to employ him in his electoral struggle with the opposition, will wane because he got rid of electoral pressure. The Syrian regime will have to deal with the difficult fact that Erdogan no longer has to compromise out of need for Turkey's core interests in Syria.
However, Turkey's motivations for this turn in the relationship with the Syrian regime actually go beyond the internal electoral calculations that prevailed before the Turkish elections. Ankara will remain willing to reach understandings with the regime that meet its security interests and efforts to repatriate Syrian refugees and make progress in the Syrian political settlement, but it will manage its new Syrian policy from a strong standpoint.
At the level of Turkish relations with the Gulf, there is no reason to believe that the new relationship that Erdogan established with the former Gulf opponents 3 years ago, such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE, will decline, but on the contrary, the importance of the Turkish-Gulf partnership will be further established for the two parties, because a new regional order in the Middle East is taking shape, Turkey's good relations with the countries of the region, especially the Gulf and Egypt, will push towards achieving regional stability and finding ways to settle chronic regional conflicts and build a new balanced regional order.
Turkey's continued positive engagement in regional issues, which will continue under the new term of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, will not only guarantee Turkey's interests in the region, but also serve as an interest for Arab partners who will be able to rely more on Turkey to achieve regional balance and benefit from its strong presence in the region and its influence on the policies of major powers, especially Russia and the West, in the Middle East.