Cairo, Feb 14 (EFE).- The humanitarian tragedy in Gaza topped the agenda of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan during face-to-face talks with his Egyptian counterpart on Wednesday, following more than a decade of tensions that began after the overthrow of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood government in 2013.

“We will continue to cooperate and stand in solidarity with our Egyptian brothers to end the bloodshed in Gaza,” the Turkish leader said.

In a joint press conference from Cairo after a one-on-one meeting, President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi welcomed Erdogan, who is visiting Egypt for the first time in 12 years, to “open a new page” between the two countries and “enrich bilateral relations to put them on the right track.”

The Egyptian president recalled that after a period of rapprochement between Cairo and Ankara in 2021, trade and investment relations between the two countries have experienced “steady growth,” making Egypt “Turkey’s first trade partner in Africa.”

“In this new era of our relations, trade will be the locomotive,” assured Erdogan, who revealed that investments worth $3 billion currently exist between the two countries, as well as the will to increase them, especially in the military, energy and nuclear sectors.

Relations between the two countries broke down in 2013 following El-Sissi’s coup against the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood government led by Mohamed Mursi, a group Ankara had protected after Cairo designated it a terrorist organization.

Erdogan then branded the current Egyptian president as a coup leader and anti-democratic, and assured that he would never meet him or shake his hand.

However, in November 2022, the two leaders shook hands during the World Cup in Qatar, an event that was interpreted as the end of the political rift between the two countries.

The Muslim Brotherhood is a Sunni Islamist organization founded in Egypt in 1920 that seeks to establish Sharia law, and Hamas, the de facto ruler of the Gaza Strip, is its Palestinian offshoot. EFE

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