On April 3, 2023, ECFA held a symposium on “Egypt-Türkiye relations… opportunities and challenges,” against the backdrop of recent rapprochement steps between the two sides, the most recent of which was the visit of Mr. Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, the Foreign Minister of Türkiye, to Egypt last March. The list of speakers included Ambassador Abdel Rahman Salah, ECFA Member and former Egyptian Ambassador to Türkiye, Ambassador Mohamed Zaazou, Deputy Assistant Minister of Foreign Affairs for East and South Europe Affairs, Ms. Minister Plenipotentiary Marwa Farghaly, Head of the Egyptian Commercial Representation Office in Türkiye, and Mr. Mohamed Kassem, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Egyptian Exporters Association, and rapporteur of ECFA’s Economic Affairs Committee. The meeting was opened by Ambassador Mohamed Al-Orabi, ECFA Chairman, and a number of ambassadors, academics and researchers participated in it, including Ambassadors: Marwan Badr, Ezzat Saad, ECFA Director, Mohamed Anis Salem, Wafaa Al-Hadidi, Salama Shaker, Mohamed Idris, Rakha Hassan, Salah Halima, Abdel Moneim Omar, Hisham Zadeh, Mohamed Al-Dorghami, Dr. Sadiq Abdel-Al, and Dr. Diaa Helmy.
The meeting tackled what happened during the aforementioned visit of the Turkish minister, the desire of both sides to restore relations at the ambassadorial level, and coordinate to hold a summit between the two presidents, in light of the political will and directives by both President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan, when they met in Doha, in November 2021, on the sidelines of their attendance of the opening ceremony of the World Cup, to launch the path to reaching full normalization of relations following exploratory rounds, accompanied by several positive developments over the past years, including Turkey’s clear determination to settle its differences with Arab countries, such as the Emirates and Saudi Arabia.
The meeting also discussed opportunities to enhance relations between the two sides, especially at the level of investments and trade, given that Turkish investors enjoy a significant presence inside Egypt, especially in the textile and ready-made clothing sector. This is in addition to reviving tourism and cultural paths and strengthening people’s diplomacy between the Egyptian and Turkish peoples. On the other hand, the participants pointed out the importance of coordination with the Turkish side to promote a peaceful settlement in some pressing Arab issues, such as the Syrian and Libyan crises, in addition to working towards adopting steps that would enhance confidence between the two sides, to move forward with bilateral cooperation towards greater and broader horizons.
