Turkey announced - Friday - that it had resumed diplomatic contacts with the Egyptian authorities, and at the same time confirmed its desire to improve relations with both Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
Turkish officials stated that Ankara had contacted Cairo and wanted to strengthen cooperation with it after years of tension resulting from the isolation of the Egyptian army in 2013, the elected president, Mohamed Morsi, who died in prison in 2019.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that the contacts "are not at the highest level, but at the next level directly to him. We hope that we will be able to continue this process with Egypt with more force."
"We are in contact with Egypt at the level of intelligence and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The contacts started at the diplomatic level," the Anadolu news agency quoted Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu as saying.
Egyptian comment
Two Egyptian intelligence sources said that Turkey had proposed holding a meeting to discuss cooperation, but they indicated that the contacts are still in preliminary stages.
They clarified that an Egyptian security official received a phone call from a Turkish intelligence official yesterday, Thursday, expressing a desire to hold a meeting in Cairo to discuss ways of cooperation on the diplomatic, economic and political levels.
They added that the Egyptian official welcomed the invitation and promised to respond as soon as possible.
The call came in the wake of informal contacts between Egyptian and Turkish security officials, to discuss means of communication between the two sides.
According to the two sources, the issue of the maritime borders, which is a source of tension between Turkey and other countries in the eastern Mediterranean, has not been raised.
For its part, the Egyptian Middle East News Agency quoted an official source as saying, "There is no such thing as a description of" resuming diplomatic contacts. "
The source added that Egypt expects any country that aspires to establish normal relations with it, "to abide by the rules of international law and the principles of good neighborliness, and to stop attempts to interfere in the internal affairs of the countries of the region."
Turkey and the Gulf
Turkey is seeking to bridge the rift in relations with some of the regional powers.
On Friday, Cavusoglu said that Ankara would reciprocate if Saudi Arabia and the UAE took "positive steps" to overcome the recent unrest.
The relationship between Ankara and Riyadh was strained due to the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018, and because of the dispute between Qatar - an ally of Turkey - and other Gulf countries.
Turkey also disagrees with the UAE due to the conflict in Libya, and the two countries accuse each other of instability in the region.
Cavusoglu said, "There is nothing preventing the improvement of relations with Saudi Arabia. If Saudi Arabia takes positive steps, we will meet them in kind, and the same applies to the Emirates. We do not want to quarrel with anyone."