For the first time in a decade, Egypt and Turkey have announced the appointment of ambassadors to each other’s capitals in a bid to resume regular diplomatic ties, their foreign ministries said on Tuesday.
The two nations’ relations broke down in 2013 after Egypt’s then-army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi led the ouster of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohamed Mursi, an ally of Ankara.
Egypt expelled Turkey’s ambassador and accused Ankara of backing organizations bent on undermining the country.
Cairo has nominated Amr Elhamamy to serve as its ambassador in Ankara, while Turkey has appointed Salih Mutlu Şen as its ambassador to Cairo, the countries said in a joint statement.
Normalisation between Ankara and Cairo accelerated after Sisi and Erdogan shook hands in Doha at the World Cup in 2022.
After a series of further steps towards rapprochement, Egypt’s Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry visited Turkey to show solidarity after the massive earthquakes that killed more than 50,000 people in Turkey and Syria in February.
Turkey’s foreign minister made a return visit to Egypt the following month.
The two countries have also been at odds over Libya, where they backed opposing factions in an unresolved conflict, and also over maritime borders in the gas-rich Eastern Mediterranean.
