Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi is set to make his long-awaited trip to Türkiye on Sept. 4 to meet with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, according to a report in Turkish newspaper Sabah, citing an Egyptian official in Ankara.
There were no official announcements as of early Friday, but Sabah said the leaders are expected to discuss the war in Gaza and bilateral relations and convene their high-level strategic cooperation council.
Erdoğan and el-Sissi are expected to tackle joint steps to be taken to stop Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza, facilitate a direly needed cease-fire and have Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government stand trial, according to Sabah’s report.
The pair will broach joint efforts for permanent stability and peace in regional conflict zones like Palestine, Libya, Sudan and Somalia.
Boosting the trade volume up to $15 billion (TL 510 billion) is also on the agenda, with Egyptian businesspeople expected to accompany el-Sissi to Türkiye. The countries are floating further cooperation in LNG, renewable energy, mining, health care, tourism and defense industries. Increasing education, media and communication cooperation between Turkish and Egyptian universities will also be on the table.
El-Sissi’s visit is to reciprocate Erdoğan’s landmark trip to Cairo in February, which aimed to normalize relations after 12 years of tensions fully and has since been backed by bilateral meetings with and between their top diplomats.
The visit would also take place amid heightened tensions in the Middle East with failed truce negotiations between Hamas and Israel, which Cairo is hosting.
Türkiye and Egypt upgraded relations by appointing ambassadors last year. They had maintained diplomacy at the level of charge d'affaires since the 2013 military coup, which overthrew the late Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi.
After Morsi was toppled, diplomatic ties were downgraded, but economic ties remained largely unharmed. In 2022, Türkiye was the largest importer of Egyptian goods, totaling $4 billion. In 2023, Cairo allowed Turkish citizens to obtain a visa on arrival, paving the way for advanced tourism.
Normalization accelerated after Erdoğan and el-Sissi shook hands in Doha at the World Cup in 2022 and gained further pace following the deadly February 2023 earthquakes in Türkiye, Erdoğan's reelection in May and the appointment of ambassadors to each other's capitals in July.
Since then, the two leaders met on the sidelines of the G-20 leaders summit in September and held conversations over the phone, particularly on the latest round of the Palestine-Israel conflict that broke out on Oct. 7.
Egypt is a leading actor in resolving the Palestine-Israel conflict and hosted talks with Hamas the day Erdoğan visited Cairo. It is also the only country with a safe border crossing for Gazans and delivery of humanitarian relief.
Türkiye, currently the largest aid provider to the Palestinian enclave, has delivered its shipments through the Rafah crossing in cooperation with Egyptian authorities so far.
Pundits have argued cooperation between the two countries could help push for steps to end Israel's occupation policy and resolve the Palestinian issue.
Including in talks with el-Sissi, Erdoğan often reiterates the need for Muslim unity to end Israel's attacks on the Gaza Strip that have killed at least 40,000 Palestinians in the past 10 months.
Normalization could also lead to a breakthrough in the Eastern Mediterranean, where the region's countries have overlapping claims on maritime borders and natural gas resources, notably with Greece and Libya.
