Turkish Deputy Foreign Minister, Sadat Onal, arrived in Cairo today, Wednesday, on a visit to Egypt, the first by an official Turkish delegation since June 30, 2013.

The Turkish Foreign Ministry said that its delegation headed by Onal will conduct exploratory discussions to discuss the normalization of relations with Cairo. Who is Sadat Onal?

  • He entered the Turkish diplomatic corps in 1989.

  • His first mission outside Turkey was in Kuwait, where he was sent after the start of the Gulf War in the period from 1991-1993.

  • He worked as an assistant to the Director of the Middle East Department at the Turkish Foreign Ministry between 2005-2007, and also during the period from 2009-2012.

  • During the period between 2012-2016 he worked as Turkey's ambassador to Jordan.

  • From 2016-2018, he worked as an assistant to the Undersecretary for bilateral relations in the Turkish Foreign Ministry with the Middle East, North Africa, Asia and the Pacific.

  • In 2018, he became deputy foreign minister of Turkey to this day.

During his work as Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, he took over the Syrian and Libyan file in the Turkish Foreign Ministry, and participated in the Geneva and Astana meetings, representing the Turkish side.

The Egyptian Foreign Ministry had revealed political consultations in Cairo with Ankara to normalize relations between the two countries at the bilateral and regional levels, and was attended by the Egyptian side, Hamdi Sanad, Deputy Foreign Minister, as well as the Turkish delegation headed by Onal.

The ministry said - in a statement - that "political consultations between Egypt and Turkey begin today and will continue until tomorrow."

And Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu announced in the middle of last month that "following an invitation from Egypt to Turkey, a delegation will go there at the beginning of this month."

Cavusoglu stressed that relations between Ankara and Cairo entered a "new phase" of détente after years of tension, which reached its climax after the overthrow of the late Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi.