Erdoğan and Egypt

Relations between Egypt and Turkey have never been easy since the Ottoman army entered Cairo and hung up the body of the Mamluk Sultan Tuman bay II at the city gate for three days in the wake of fierce battles that killed around 50,000 people and turned Egypt into an Ottoman province waiting for any opportunity to rise up against Constantinople.

The early part of the 20th century has witnessed the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the Arab Revolt which basically erupted against Ottoman rule in the Levant. After Mustafa Kemal Atatürk modernized Turkey, rules of the game changed and Ankara, for several reasons, kept aloof from the Arab world, focusing instead on the EU. This remained the case until the Justice and Development Party (AKP) rose to power and its leader Recep Tayyip Erdoğan struck up a friendship with the Syrian regime in Damascus that opened the doors of the Arab world to Ankara.

Egypt has had no major contact with modern Turkey and it has been keen to maintain its ties with Ankara friendly. This became evident when former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak mediated between Ankara and Damascus to contain what seemed to be a military escalation over the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) leader who ended up arrested.

This remained the case until the Muslim Brotherhood rose to power in Egypt. A rapprochement took place between the two countries due to similarities in the ideology of the AKP and Egypt’s new rulers. Nevertheless, there were also differences and they emerged on several occasions over their stances towards secularism. However, the real confrontation took place after the June 30 revolution that toppled the Brotherhood, with Erdoğan seizing every opportunity to issue firebrand remarks against Egypt. On the public level, there was, and remains to be, an admiration of the economic success Turkey has achieved over the past years. However, this has not prevented the public from voicing its anger at Erdoğan’s statements which are considered to amount to interference in the affairs of a sovereign country.

It is natural that Turkey’s ruling AKP has reacted negatively to the defeat of their Brotherhood ally. However, it is completely unacceptable for Erdoğan to continue his anti-Egypt rhetoric even after it became evident that the Brotherhood’s rule was irrevocably gone. Instead, an official as senior as the Turkish president should have responded to the developments in Egypt with some degree of diplomacy.

Moreover, Ankara has been supporting a host of TV channels and other media platforms that instigate against Cairo at a time when terrorist groups have stepped up their attacks against Egypt.

Bizarrely enough, there is no logical explanation for Erdoğan’s antagonism of Cairo as it would be in Ankara’s best interests to maintain good terms with Egypt, a major power and a pillar of instability in the region.

Many questions hover over Turkey’s foreign policy and whether it aims to create instability in the region and its neighboring countries, including Egypt.

The views expressed by the author do not necessarily represent or reflect the editorial policy of Arab Today.