ANKARA: After years of tension, a handshake between Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi last week opened the door to a flurry of back-door diplomacy between intelligence officials, two sources said.

Intelligence delegations from the two sides met in Egypt at the weekend, said a regional source with knowledge of the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The second source, a senior Turkish official, said “significant” discussions had begun between them, and Turkiye and Egypt are set to begin talks on military, political and commercial issues including energy projects.

Turkish government officials did not comment when asked about the Egypt meeting. Egypt’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu separately told reporters on Monday that Ankara and Cairo may restore full diplomatic ties and re-appoint ambassadors “in coming months”.

Diplomatic ties have been strained since Sisi, then Egypt’s army chief, led the 2013 ouster of Mohamed Mursi of the Muslim Brotherhood, who was strongly supported by Erdogan.

But Erdogan and Sisi shook hands on the sidelines of the World Cup in Qatar last week in what Cairo described as a new start in bilateral relations.

Separately, an Egyptian intelligence source said delegations in Cairo had discussed how to bring their points of view on common security issues closer. Those issues included Turkiye-based media outlets associated with the Muslim Brotherhood and opposed to Egypt’s government, the source said.

Published in Dawn, November 29th, 2022