The Egyptian-Turkish Summit meeting that took place in the Turkish capital Ankara this week is the culmination of a process of normalising relations between the two countries that has lasted for more than three years and started after a strategic turnaround by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in which he changed his policy of supporting Political Islam in the Arab countries shaken by the revolutions of the Arab Spring.

This Turkish turnaround resulted from regional and international changes and local changes within the Turkish state.

The Muslim Brotherhood regime in Egypt was overthrown on 30 June 2013 in a second popular revolution following the one that had originally brought it to power, with the Egyptian Armed Forces supporting both. A Saudi-Emirati alliance was active against the spread of Political Islam, fearing that it could also take power in the sheikhdoms and kingdoms of the Arabian Peninsula. This Gulf alliance supported the Egyptian Army leadership in getting rid of the Brotherhood in the face of the US and Western preference for the Brotherhood to remain in power.

The failure of the bet on Political Islam was also evident in Libya, Syria, Yemen and Sudan. The US and other Western countries backed away from opposing the overthrow of the Brotherhood in the face of a strong regional alliance against it. The international system has moved away from a unipolar system led by the US and promoting the Western capitalist system towards a multipolar system that allows regional powers such as Egypt and Turkey greater freedom of movement and a wider range of alternative alliances with the possibility of combining good relations with them.

These developments have led to a decline in Western support for the Turkish president, who until the Arab Spring had presented a model for governing a Muslim-majority country in a secular manner that followed the principles of Western democracy, maintained its commitments as a member of NATO, and sought to join the European Union despite the failure of its three-decade-long efforts to achieve it.

In addition to the failure of Erdogan’s bet on Political Islam in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, and Syria, the attempts of Turkey, the West, and some Gulf states to overthrow Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad and the wake of the toppling of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi caused regional instability that led to the emergence of the Islamic State group (IS) and the displacement of millions of Syrian refugees who have sought refuge in Turkey and other countries in the region.

Erdogan has used these refugees to blackmail European countries, threatening to expel them to Europe if he did not receive financial and political support from the EU for his plans to occupy northern Syria.

Domestically, Erdogan also turned against his Islamist ally Fethullah Gulen and members of his movement after the Arab Spring, accusing them of plotting a coup against him in 2016. He began to persecute followers of this movement all over the world, including in the European countries, and he later obstructed Sweden’s accession to NATO because it had harboured some members of it.

Erdogan’s popularity was negatively affected domestically by the above, and more importantly also because of the deterioration in Turkey’s economic situation as a result of abandoning the advice of experts and adopting a populist policy that maintained low interest rates. The Turkish lira lost about 80 per cent of its value, and inflation rose to more than 60 per cent, increasing the suffering of the lower and middle classes of the Turkish people.

These political and economic considerations led to a sharp decline in Western investments in the Turkish economy, which prompted Erdogan to accelerate reconciliation with the Arab countries with which he had been at odds because of his alliance with the Muslim Brotherhood.

Of course, the Turkish reconciliation began with Saudi Arabia and the UAE and proceeded at a faster pace with them than with Egypt due to Turkey’s urgent need of Gulf capital and investment.

After my return from Turkey following the downgrading of diplomatic relations between Egypt and Turkey from the level of ambassador to that of chargé d’affaires, the two countries maintained their economic relations despite the political conflict between their governments.

In 2013, I was proud to note that the total volume of trade between Egypt and Turkey had reached $5 billion, when it had not exceeded half that figure when I started my work as Egypt’s ambassador in Ankara in early 2010. After ten years of political estrangement, this figure had doubled by 2023 to approach $10 billion. The governments of the two countries are now aiming to increase it to $15 billion within three years. The market value of Turkish investments in Egypt now also approaches $5 billion.

Perhaps the only economic activity that was negatively affected by the political hostility between the two countries was the suspension of the shipping line between them across the Mediterranean via shuttle services that carried “roll-on-roll-off” (RORO) trucks loaded with Turkish and European goods on their way to the Gulf.

RORO trips used to depart from Turkish ports in the northern Mediterranean to land at Egyptian ports and then travel by land to the Red Sea coast to be loaded in the port of Safaga onto another RORO ship that would transport them to Saudi Arabia to set off to their destinations in the Gulf cities. These voyages were effective in transporting European goods to the Gulf after the land route from Turkey to the Gulf via Syria was cut due to the Civil War in the country.

Since 2013, after the RORO line between Egypt and Turkey was stopped due to Egyptian security concerns, Turkey diverted the line to the Israeli port of Haifa and from there to Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the Gulf cities. I expect this line to be stopped as part of the trade boycott imposed by Erdogan against Israel due to the Gaza war.

I suggest that an agreement be reached between Egypt and Turkey to resume this maritime line, and I advise Egypt’s government to study how to benefit from the return trips of these trucks so that they go back loaded with Egyptian goods to Turkey and other European countries instead of returning empty as was happening ten years ago.

The Egyptian-Turkish Summit held in Ankara with the participation of a large number of ministers from both countries was also the first meeting of the Strategic Cooperation Council of the two countries and took place in the presence of more than 100 Egyptian businessmen and several times that number from the Turkish side.

The current stage of the development of relations between the two countries raises several bilateral and regional issues for discussion that require study and consideration of their repercussions on relations between the two countries.

My aim here is to present some recommendations that could maximise the benefits from the Ankara Summit and serve as the basis for discussions promoted by the Egyptian governmental, commercial, and cultural side in the regional and bilateral fields.

 

REGIONAL ISSUES: The first set of recommendations has to do with regional issues.

As the international order moves from US unipolar hegemony to multipolar competition, the importance of major regional powers, including Egypt and Turkey, is increasing on many issues.

Of course, Turkey is interested in coordinating with Egypt on the war in Gaza, as both countries agree on the importance of ending the war, Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza, and sufficient aid reaching the Palestinians. However, Turkey lacks the channels of dialogue with Israel and the geographical proximity that Egypt possesses.

Turkey has invested economically and militarily in many of the conflict zones in the region, which has given it great influence in these areas and especially in Libya, Ethiopia and Somalia, and Syria.

In Libya, it is clear that the US and many European parties are now changing the policies that gave Turkey a mandate to balance the Russian presence in the country and are gradually moving towards a policy that encourages finding a political compromise between the eastern and western parts of Libya. They are now encouraging the reaching of a deal through which control can be achieved over Libya’s oil and gas wealth, which has become increasingly important due to the Ukraine war and Libya’s geographical proximity to European markets.

Recently, we have witnessed one US initiative and another from the UN envoy in this regard, and there is Western agreement on the need to form a new national coalition government in Libya and support the continuation in office of the new Central Bank governor, two things that Abdel-Hamid Dbeibah, who heads Tripoli government in Libya, opposes.

Turkish officials have expressed their readiness to reach an understanding with Egypt on a common position on the Libyan issue. After the Egyptian embassy returned to work in Tripoli, the Turkish Foreign Ministry also announced the reopening of its consulate in Benghazi and the return of Turkish companies to work in eastern Libya.

Russia’s transfer of thousands of Wagner Group mercenaries from Libya to Ukraine and its need to transfer more of them in the same direction and to other regions such as Sudan and other African countries have increased the possibility of reaching an Egyptian-Turkish-Russian agreement to evacuate all mercenary forces from Libya.

This would leave about a hundred regular Turkish soldiers and a similar number of Russians still deployed on Libyan territory. Dealing with these can be left to the new Libyan government that will be formed if a consensual political solution is reached.

There is no doubt that neither Egypt nor Turkey will abandon their Libyan allies or their fair share of Libyan wealth or their relative weight in forming the new government. Egypt will not need to change its position in rejecting the agreements concluded by the government of Fayez Al-Sarraj and Dbeibah with Turkey on maritime borders or Turkey’s exploitation of Libyan oil and gas fields.

Egypt can reach an understanding with Turkey that facilitates reaching a Libyan political solution and enables the Libyan parties to form a new government while at the same time taking into account Egyptian, Turkish, Western, and Russian interests. It is also possible to reach an Egyptian-Turkish understanding on the cooperation of the two countries’ companies in projects to be implemented in eastern and western Libya on an equal footing and securing Libyan political support for these projects and Libyan financing.

Regarding Ethiopia and Somalia, Turkey is the second-largest investor in Ethiopia after China, and more than 200 Turkish companies operate in the country, which also receives military aid from Turkey that helped its government resolve the recent Civil War in its favour. Turkey has offered to mediate between Sudan and Ethiopia to resolve the border disputes between the two countries.

I believe that Turkey can contribute, along with the other countries solicited by Egypt to mediate, to convincing the Ethiopian government to accept a compromise deal with Egypt on the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) issue.

Turkey maintains the largest military presence and aid mission in the Somali capital Mogadishu, and it supports the unity of Somali territory and the control of the central government over all Somali regions, including Somaliland. Ethiopia is trying to support Somaliland’s secession from Somalia in exchange for obtaining access rights to establish an Ethiopian seaport there.

I believe that Egypt’s armed participation in maintaining peace in Somalia and defending its unity will be more effective and influential in coordination with Turkey in the light of the two countries’ similar interests.

Regarding the Eastern Mediterranean, Egypt can benefit from the close relations it has established in the region with both Greece and Cyprus in order to reach a practical formulation that enables Turkey to obtain a share of the gas in the waters separating it from these two countries without entering into legal disputes over agreements that have been in place for more than 100 years.

This should also be possible while awaiting the resolution of the dispute over Turkish Cyprus, which is not recognised by the vast majority of countries.

What comes to mind here is the model of the Lebanese-Israeli agreement that was reached to divide the offshore gas fields between these two countries with US mediation and assistance from French and Italian gas companies and Qatar without there being diplomatic relations between the two countries at the time.

Normalising relations with Turkey and developing cooperation with the Al-Assad government in Syria could open the door for Egypt to participate in negotiations to reach a peaceful settlement to the war in Syria, resolve the refugee problem, and reach international security guarantees in northern Syria, in which no Arab party has been participating so far.

 

BILATERAL RELATIONS: First, at the bilateral level the 2013 Turkish credit agreement worth $1 billion at a low interest rate could be revived.

Egypt did not benefit from that line of credit because it was signed before the overthrow of the Muslim Brotherhood regime in the country. There were already agreements for Turkish investments in Egypt in the fields of solid waste recycling and the role of private-sector companies in solving the problem of slum areas.

Second, there was also an unfulfilled agreement between Erdogan and President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi when he was minister of defence in May 2013 to open a similar Turkish credit line with the same facilities and worth $200 million to finance Turkish arms sales to Egypt and joint military production projects between the two countries.

These agreements were frozen but could now be considered for resumption to finance new projects such as importing and producing Turkish drones, missile boats, transport vehicles and electric cars to Egypt.

Third, Egypt can benefit from the experience of Turkish businessmen in the textile industry in Egypt. Turkish textile factories in Egypt export hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of manufactured products to US and African markets. I suggest that an Egyptian-Turkish partnership agreement be set up to solve the problems of Egyptian public-sector textile factories.

Fourth, Turkish manufacturers in Egypt use cheap gas and labour and sell their production to the large Egyptian market and the US, African, and Arab markets where Egypt enjoys significant advantages and customs exemptions. They provide an attractive model for more Turkish investments in Egypt. At the same time, the value of our exports of Egyptian and Israeli liquefied gas to Turkey has exceeded $2 billion in the past two years, which raised the value of Egyptian exports to Turkey last year to $5 billion, equal to the value of Turkish imports.

Fifth, in 2011, the Arab Gas Pipeline, which starts in Egypt and passes through Jordan, Israel, and Syria, was about 100 km short of reaching Turkish territory. We are now preparing to use this pipeline to provide Egyptian and Israeli gas to Lebanon and are studying using it in both directions, opening the door in the long term to linking it in both directions to the Turkish network that will receive large quantities of Russian gas in the coming years.

Sixth, cultural cooperation represents an important aspect of the opportunities to market Egyptian literary and artistic production in the large Turkish market. Turkey produces 88,000 books in different fields and different languages every year, while Egypt produces 12,000 titles annually and the rest of the Arabs produce 8,000.

This means that 475 million Arabs read less than a quarter of the number of books read by 85 million Turks every year. I believe that Egyptian films and TV series can receive a Turkish reception similar to that enjoyed by Turkish TV series and films in the Arab world.

Seventh, many Turks are keen to send their children to learn the Arabic language and the Islamic religion at Al-Azhar University in Cairo and other Egyptian universities. The number of these students has decreased in the past two decades due to the deterioration of the level of education in Egyptian universities and the adherence to teaching curricula that are not always compatible with modern times.

It is clear that opportunities for cooperation between Egypt and Turkey, regionally and bilaterally, far outweigh areas of competition or potential conflict. This makes me hope that the Ankara Summit will usher in a new phase of close relations between the two countries building on commonalities and benefitting from past mistakes.

 

The writer is former ambassador to Turkey.

* A version of this article appears in print in the 12 September, 2024 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly