Recep Tayyip Erdogan meets Abdel Fattah el-Sisi in Cairo as relations warm after years of tensions.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi called for a halt to Israel's imminent offensive against Rafah in southern Gaza as the leaders held bilateral talks in Cairo.
Erdogan's visit to Egypt on Wednesday comes as ties between Ankara and Cairo have returned to normal after years of tensions and cold relations.
The Turkish leader arrived in the Egyptian capital, his first visit to Cairo in more than a decade, after visiting the United Arab Emirates on Tuesday, where he met with UAE President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan.
Erdogan met with El-Sisi at Cairo's Ittihadiya Palace, according to Egyptian state media. Their talks focused on bilateral relations and regional challenges, especially efforts to stop the war in Gaza, El-Sisi later said at a joint news conference.
“We agree on the need for an immediate ceasefire [in Gaza] and the need to achieve calm in the West Bank” to relaunch peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians with the ultimate goal of establishing an independent Palestinian state, el-Sisi said.
Erdogan said Turkey was determined to intensify talks with Egypt at all levels to establish peace and stability in the region.
“We will continue to cooperate and stand in solidarity with our Egyptian brothers to end the bloodshed in Gaza,” he said.
Egypt and Turkey fell out after the Egyptian military ousted President Mohammed Morsi, who hailed from the Muslim Brotherhood, in 2013 amid mass protests against his rule.
In recent years, Ankara dropped its criticism of el-Sisi's government as it sought to repair frayed ties with Egypt and other regional powers. In November 2022, Erdogan and El-Sisi were photographed shaking hands during the World Cup in Qatar.
The war in Gaza has come to a head, with an imminent Israeli offensive on the city of Rafah, along the Gaza Strip's border with Egypt, where around 1.4 million people – more than half of the territory's population – are crammed into tent camps and overflowing apartments. and shelters.
Speaking at the press conference with el-Sisi, Erdogan urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to avoid a ground offensive in Rafah and accused the Israeli government of committing “massacres” in Gaza.
“Efforts to depopulate Gaza are not acceptable,” he said.
Egypt is concerned that a ground attack on Rafah would push hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians across the border and into Egypt's Sinai Peninsula. He has threatened to suspend the peace treaty that the country has had with Israel for decades.
Egypt, along with Qatar and the United States, a key ally of Israel, has been working to try to negotiate a ceasefire and the return of the 130 remaining captives held by Hamas, about a quarter of whom Israel believes are they are dead. Negotiators held talks in Cairo on Tuesday but there was no sign of a breakthrough.
Erdogan also said Turkey was willing to cooperate with Egypt to rebuild Gaza, pledging to boost trade with Egypt to $15 billion in the short term.
Israel launched its war against Gaza on October 7 after Hamas fighters carried out a surprise attack in southern Israel, killing at least 1,139 people and taking about 250 more hostage, according to Israeli authorities.
Israel responded with a devastating bombing and ground invasion of Gaza, killing more than 28,500 people, according to Palestinian authorities. The Israeli attack has reduced much of the besieged territory to rubble and displaced more than 80 percent of the population, according to aid agencies.
