First handshake in a decade. While the two countries were at odds, Egyptian Presidents Abdel Fattah al-Sissi and Turkish Presidents Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced, Wednesday February 14, in Cairo, that they were opening "a new page" in their relations.
In 2013, when Abdel Fattah al-Sissi, then head of the army, overthrew the Islamist Mohamed Morsi, a great ally of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the latter swore that he would "never" speak to "someone like" him.
A decade later, the Turkish leader was greeted with honors by his Egyptian counterpart when he landed at Cairo airport.
The two men then signed several agreements, both pleading for "a new stage in relations", an increase in trade "to 15 billion dollars per year within a few years" and diplomatic cooperation in the Middle East and Africa. .
If the rag burned for a long time - Egypt and Turkey support two rival governments in Libya and have only recently reconciled on the Sudanese issue - commercial relations have remained good: Ankara is Cairo's fifth commercial partner.
“Egypt is currently Turkey's leading trading partner in Africa,” the Egyptian president said on Wednesday.
“Occupation and massacres”
On Monday, Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he was going to the United Arab Emirates and then to Egypt to "see what more can be done for our brothers in Gaza", a small Palestinian territory bordering Egypt that has been relentlessly shelled by Israel since the attack. unprecedented murder by Hamas against the south of the country on October 7.
The Turkish president added that Ankara was doing "everything to stop the bloodshed", while more than 28,000 Palestinians were killed, the vast majority civilians, according to the Hamas government, in the offensive launched in the strip. of Gaza by Israel in retaliation for the attack.
The October 7 attack resulted in the death of more than 1,160 people on the Israeli side, the majority of them civilians killed that day, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli data.
According to Israel, 130 hostages are still in Gaza, 29 of whom are believed to have died, out of around 250 people kidnapped on October 7. A one-week truce at the end of November allowed the release of 105 hostages in exchange for 240 Palestinians detained by Israel.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan denounced on Wednesday "the policy of occupation and massacres of the government of Benjamin Netanyahu", the Israeli Prime Minister.
Referring to Rafah, the town in the southern Gaza Strip on which the Israeli army is threatening to launch an offensive, Erdogan urged the international community "not to allow such madness to occur that will lead to genocide."
Humanitarian aid
Abdel Fattah al-Sissi denounced "Israel's obstacles which mean that humanitarian aid enters Gaza too slowly."
Egypt holds Gaza's only opening to the world that is not controlled by Israel: the Rafah crossing. All other crossing points are hermetically sealed by Israel.
If Rafah connects the Palestinian and Egyptian territories, the Israelis demand to search all the trucks passing there, which slows down the delivery of aid.
Erdogan, who described Israel as a "terrorist state" and Hamas as a "group of liberators", recalled his ambassador to Tel Aviv in early November, while deeming it impossible to "completely break" with Israel.
Before October 7, several Hamas political leaders were based in Istanbul. They have since been quietly asked to leave.
From the start of the conflict in Gaza, Recep Tayyip Erdogan offered to mediate but discussions on truces have so far been led by Qatar and Egypt.
On Tuesday, the directors of the American and Israeli intelligence services, the Qatari prime minister and Egyptian leaders discussed in Cairo ways to "work towards a truce in the Gaza Strip."
These discussions, which also focused on a new release of hostages, were "positive" and should continue until Friday, reported television close to Egyptian intelligence.
With AFP
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