CAIRO: Egypt and Turkiye said on Tuesday they had appointed ambassadors to each other’s countries for the first time in a decade, in the latest sign of warming ties.

Cairo and Ankara both issued statements announcing “the upgrading of diplomatic relations between them to the level of ambassadors”. The two foreign ministries said the move “aims at the re-normalisation of relations between the two countries and reflects the mutual will to develop bilateral relations”.

Egypt named Amr Elhamamy as its new ambassador in Ankara, while Turkiye named Salih Mutlu Sen as its ambassador in Cairo.

The appointments mark a rapprochement between Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and his Turkish veteran counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Relations were severed a decade ago when Sisi, then Egypt’s defence minister, ousted the Islamist president Mohamed Morsi, an ally of Turkiye and part of the Muslim Brotherhood movement.

At the time, Erdogan said he would never speak to “anyone” like Sisi, who in 2014 became president of the Arab world’s most populous nation.

The first signs of a thaw came in May 2021 when a Turkish delegation visited Egypt to discuss a possible normalisation.

Last November, Erdogan and Sisi shook hands in Qatar in what the Egyptian presidency heralded as a new beginning in their relations. The two leaders then spoke by telephone after a devastating earthquake hit Turkiye and Syria in February.

While relations were long frosty, trade continued. In 2022, Turkiye was the largest importer of Egyptian goods, totalling $4 billion.

Disagreements remain as Turkiye is home to many Arab journalists critical of their governments, in particular Egyptians close to the Muslim Brotherhood, which has been outlawed by Cairo.

Cairo and Ankara also back opposite sides in conflict-torn Libya where two rival administrations vie for power. Turkiye has sent military support to the internationally supported government in Tripoli, while Egypt has backed a military strongman based in the country’s east, Khalifa Haftar.

Published in Dawn, July 5th, 2023