Jean Marcou, Professor of Law at Sciences Po Grenoble, researcher at CERDAP2 and associate researcher at the French Institute of Anatolian Studies in Istanbul.
This is it! The reconciliation between Cairo and Ankara, which has been dragging on for two years, to the point of having seemed to be bogged down, seems to be coming to a conclusion. In recent weeks weeks, the foreign ministers of both countries have held successive in Egypt and Turkey, and have even announced the restoration of their diplomatic relations their diplomatic relations (downgraded to chargé d'affaires for the past 10 years) through a forthcoming exchange of ambassadors.
The international climate and and domestic political developments are certainly conducive to a reunion between the Mediterranean brothers. However, the rivalry between these Middle East has its roots in a tumultuous and complex contemporary history history, often illustrated by tenacious strategic disagreements which it is hard to believe have been definitively overcome, even if the recently promising prospects.
A strategic rivalry
Mamluk Egypt became an Ottoman province province when, after the first episodes of its Balkan-Anatolian development the Ottoman Empire descended into the heart of the Near East. In the early of the 16th century, Sultan SelimI (father of Suleiman the the Magnificent) conquered the Egyptian Mamluk kingdom, and in the process his title from the last Abassid caliph, al-Mutawakkil. Selim was not only sultan (political leader), but also caliph (heir to the Prophet and heir to the Prophet and leader of the world's Muslims), at the head of an Empire on the threshold of its apogee. of its apogee, the Ottoman Empire. But although Egypt was an important province important province, it would never be its nerve center. Instead, it was located in Europe, in the Balkans, and even in western Anatolia.
With the decline of the Ottoman Empire Egypt try to take advantage of the course of international relations to gain autonomy. At the beginning of the 19th century governor of Egypt, Mehmet Ali, undertook economic and political modernization economic and political modernization, even before the Porte took notice. After re-establishing the Empire's authority over its Arabian and African provinces African provinces, he managed to emancipate himself from Ottoman tutelage, obtaining a flattering title title (viceroy, then khedive) and the right to found a dynasty. It In the 1830s, his son Ibrahim's armies inflicted two severe defeats the Empire, whose authority was re-established by the Franco-British by the Franco-British West, anxious to guarantee the integrity of the "sick man man" in the face of Russia's push towards the warm seas.
This Egyptian offensive, weakened by the Khedives' indebtedness, was soon contained by the same Westerners for whom, after the completion of the Suez Canal, control of the country became a major concern. While Egypt remained formally Ottoman, it was de facto a sort of a sort of British province at the end of the 19th century, before becoming a de jure protectorate of the United Kingdom in 1914. During the World War I, Egypt found itself on the side of the Allies, while the Ottoman Empire joined the camp of the Central Empires. Despite the revolution of 1919 and its independence in 1922, the new kingdom of Egypt of Egypt (and above all the Suez Canal) remained under British rule until the early 1950s.
At the same time, the Ottoman Empire disappeared gave way to Mustafa Kemal's Republic, a modernizing Turkish nation-state modernizing Turkish nation-state which, while embracing European ways of life national independence, and only entered the war on the side of the Allies in with the Allies until February 1945.
Things changed as the Cold War deepened. In 1952, worried about the power of the neighboring Soviet Union, Turkey, which along with the Shah's Iran was the first Muslim country to recognize Israel, joined NATO. At the same time, the Free Officers' Revolution distanced Egypt from the West. In 1955, Gamal Abdel Nasser, leader of the new Arab republic, refused to join the Baghdad Pact (a kind of Middle Eastern NATO, under British supervision, to which the Turks and Iranians belonged), and became one of the leading figures of the non-aligned movement. At the height of the Cold War, Egypt and Turkey were at opposite ends of the spectrum: the former had become a linchpin of Soviet influence in the Middle East, while the latter remained NATO's key link on its southern flank, guarding the Bosphorus and Dardanelles straits.
The Turks paid dearly for this pro-Western the Arab world's resolute support for Greece and the Greek Cypriots, when the and the Greek Cypriots, when the island of Aphrodite flared up and divided in the 1960s and 1970s. This led them to a certain return to the East to the East, signified by their membership of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (the future Organization of Islamic Cooperation) and the first steps Israel (notably through recognition of the PLO). For its part In 1978, following the Camp David Accords, Anwar Sadat's Egypt made a spectacular a spectacular reversal of alliance, drawing closer to the United States United States and signing a separate peace treaty with Israel. However, this international relations did not lead to perfect understanding between Egyptians and Turks. After Iran's Islamic revolution, Turkey remains America's most important ally in the Middle East, and continues to a close relationship with Israel, particularly in the military field. military
The unfulfilled promises of the "Turkish model
For this reason, the Hosni Mubarak's regime initially greeted the AKP's rise to power in Turkey of the AKP in Turkey at the turn of the millennium. These ex-Islamists turned "conservatives-democrats" are too much the embodiment of the leaders for the Arab world, as part of his "Greater Middle East" project. for the Arab world, as part of his "Greater Middle East" project. cohabiting a respect for pro-Western alliances with an attachment to religious values religious values, enabling them to win the popular support Arab autocrats. And yet, Egyptians do not sulk their pleasure when Recep Tayyip Erdoğan begins to reassess his relationship with the Hebrew state, while not sparing his Western allies. On the banks of the Nile, even liberals are beginning to admire Erdoğan, and regret that the and regret that the Muslim Brotherhood does not draw enough inspiration from his example. In 2011, Turkey supports the Egyptian revolution of January 25, and becomes a kind of "model" for an Arab world in search of economic and political economic and political solutions for its future. At that time, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was even received in Cairo Cairo, at the Arab League, with great pomp and ceremony. A first for a Turkish leader!
However, the "Turkish model quickly ran out of steam. Having come to power after the first free elections in 2012, President Mohamed Morsi's Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood changed the and tried to tighten their grip on power, provoking a popular protest movement in the spring of 2013. which the army used to oust them from power. In the summer of 2013, following the massacre of supporters of President Morsi, who had been strongly backed by Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan condemned what he considered to be a coup d'état, and described Abdel Fattah al-Sissi, Egypt's Egyptian strongman, as a "putschist", vowing never to speak to him. talk to him. It has to be said that the Turkish leader is using the Egyptian scenario, to denounce as factious the events of Gezi, the large-scale liberal opposition movement opposition movement he is facing at the same time in his own country, and which has nothing to do with what's happening in Egypt. In October 2013, the Turkish ambassador to Cairo was declared persona non grata. The two countries did not formally break off diplomatic relations, but these relations continued to deteriorate, calling into question the flattering record of previous years.
This situation goes hand in hand with deterioration in Ankara's political and economic relations with Gulf countries allies and financial backers of Egypt, notably the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, who are concerned about Turkey's rise to prominence, not only in the Middle East, but also in Africa. Added to this are Ankara's privileged Ankara's privileged relationship with Qatar and the objective interests with Teheran on a number of regional issues. Antagonism is at its in 2017, when the Gulf states decreed an embargo against Qatar, which Qatar, which receives support from Turkey and Iran, and in 2018, when dissident journalist journalist Jamal Khasshogi was murdered at the Saudi Arabian Consulate consulate general in Istanbul, and Ankara implicated Crown Prince Mohamed Ben Salmane (MBS) himself.
Far from fading into the background, the Turkish-Egyptian confrontation was further inflamed in 2019, when Turkey signed maritime and military agreements with the Libyan government in Tripoli, which Cairo opposes by supporting the rival government in Tobruk and the Libyan National Army of General Khalifa Haftar. As a result, in 2020, when Turkey contributed to the setback in Libya of General Haftar's troops in Tripoli, through the spectacular use of its armed drones drones, Egypt threatened to intervene militarily in Libya's second Libyan civil war. These military tensions are compounded by the tensions by the great gas game taking place in the Eastern Mediterranean, a hotbed of a hotbed of discord in which Cairo is endeavoring to isolate Turkey by drawing closer to Greece, Cyprus and Turkey. Greece and Cyprus, but also Israel.
The laborious beginnings of a complicated rapprochement
Along the way, in 2020-21, the change of American presidency reshuffles the cards. Faced with an unprecedented economic crisis, the Turkish president had to manage his relations with the West, especially the Europeans, whose investments were fundamental to his country. On the political front, he can no longer count on the complacency of Donald Trump, who used to enjoy a relationship of complicity with him, often enabling him to overcome the Pentagon's skepticism towards him. Tensions are also easing in the eastern Mediterranean with Greece and Israel. In the spring of 2021, Turkey began to re-establish contact with Egypt, notably by silencing media outlets close to Egyptian opponents who had taken refuge on its territory. However, the initiative was hardly convincing, and little by little, the process began to stall, becoming susceptible to the vagaries of regional developments and conflicts.
The Turks are still very present in Libya, alongside the Tripoli government. Although their presence in Sudan has been interrupted the overthrow of Omar el-Bechir in 2019, their presence is also increasingly in sub-Saharan Africa, notably in Ethiopia, a country with a major a major and long-lasting dispute with Egypt over the construction of the Renaissance dam on the Nile. So much so that in October 2022, when Ankara signed a new agreement with Tripoli, this time to authorize its hydrocarbon exploration in Libyan waters, Cairo froze the process of normalizing relations with the Turkish government, Cairo freezes the process of normalizing relations with the Turkish government, believing (as do Greece and the European Union) that this new maritime initiative is illegal. is illegal. Many felt that the Turkish-Egyptian Turkish-Egyptian rapprochement. Nevertheless, it was revived a month later, during the soccer World Cup, when the Emir of Qatar, Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, facilitated a totally unexpected meeting between the Turkish and Egyptian Turkish and Egyptian leaders. Nothing concrete came of it (neither agreement nor talks) of course, but the handshake between Erdoğan and Sissi had an effect, and averted the risk of a rift that had been threatening. the risk of a rupture that threatened the rapprochement begun a year and a half ago.
What future for the new phase of contacts underway?
Since 2022, the regional and international international strategic context has changed profoundly. In particular, the war in Ukraine is bringing Turkey and Egypt. Both have officially condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine Ukraine, but they are concerned about the repercussions that a conflict could have, economic fallout from a conflict they do not consider their own. their own. Turkey, for example, has not applied Western sanctions against Russia. against Russia. As for Egypt, the world's biggest bread consumer, importing 80% of the wheat it consumes from the two warring countries of many agricultural products. There is no doubt that that Turkey's efforts to bring the two belligerents closer together and which, since July 22, 2022, has enabled the resumption of maritime the resumption of maritime cereal exports via a secure corridor in the Black Sea, can only have been welcomed by the Egyptians.
Since the end of 2021, Turkish-Emirati and Turkish-Saudi relations have returned to normal, with official visits of the Emirati and Saudi leaders to Ankara, and of the Turkish leaders, in turn to Abu Dhabi and Riyadh. to Riyadh. In addition, Qatar, Turkey's Gulf ally, re-established relations its relations with its neighbors. All the conditions (economic, (economic, political and strategic) for a lasting Turkish-Egyptian rapprochement are it's hardly surprising that this is now taking place. All the more so especially since the earthquakes in Turkey on February 6, 2023 have fostered empathy towards the country. Adbel Fattah al-Sissi had a telephone conversation on this subject with his Turkish counterpart on this subject, and Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Choukri Sameh Choukri, visited the scene of the disaster. The latter also returned to Turkey back to Turkey on April 13, after Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Foreign Affairs, Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, was received in Cairo in mid-March. The cautious head of Turkish diplomacy had significantly declared: "It is possible that we will disagree in the future, but we will do everything in our power to avoid breaking off to avoid breaking off relations again".
Sameh Choukri's last visit to Ankara Choukri' s latest visit to Ankara the favorable turn taken by the rapprochement between Egypt and Turkey. Turkey. An announcement of the resumption of diplomatic relations between the two countries at the highest level. However, strategic disagreements strategic disagreements remain unresolved. In Ankara, the head of Egyptian diplomacy asked Turkey to withdraw its troops from the areas they occupy in northern they occupy in northern Syria, after the three military interventions carried out in 2016, 2018 and 2019; and this at a time when the Egyptians, Emiratis and Saudis are holding intensive talks to enable Bashar el-Assad's Syria to rejoin the to rejoin the Arab League.
The Egyptian Sphynx continues to watch the spirited Turkish horse gallop around him in the Middle East and Africa. One senses that Sameh Choukry is still wondering what Turkey's attitude will be in the unresolved Libyan civil war, even if Ankara has calmed the atmosphere, by starting to talk to all the warring parties and not just those close to it. The Egyptians, moreover, prefer to wait for the outcome of the forthcoming elections in Turkey (which is uncertain) before committing themselves more openly to this process of rapprochement. In fact, during his visit to Cairo, Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu asserted that nothing stood in the way of a summit between Erdoğan and Sissi, but he also agreed that it was necessary to wait until the Turkish elections had taken place.
However, this delay should not prevent economic relations from developing, as Turkey, with its high inflation and depreciating inflation and a depreciating currency, needs to export, and Egypt, which has Egypt, which has had to resort to recurrent IMF loan requests loans from the IMF foreign investors. These are undoubtedly issues on which the two eastern Mediterranean rivals should have no trouble reaching agreement. agree. But for how long?