(Bloomberg) -- Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi met with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara on Wednesday, as the two look to repair recently strained ties and cooperate more closely on energy, defense and the war in Gaza.
The two nations signed a high-level strategic cooperation agreement and Erdogan said the leaders have a “joint will” to improve ties in a range of areas, including in energy and defense. The countries signed 17 memorandums of understanding.
“We desire to improve our cooperation with Egypt on energy, namely in natural gas and nuclear power,” said Erdogan during a televised presser with El-Sisi.
El-Sisi’s first trip to Turkey since he became president in 2014 marks a turnaround after years of frosty relations between the two regional powers. Erdogan had visited Cairo for the first time in over a decade about six months ago.
The leaders also discussed the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict, with the Egyptian president calling it “an unprecedented crisis.” Both have been highly critical of Israel’s campaign in Gaza and have called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to agree to a cease-fire. The presidents may be key actors once fighting stops and the reconstruction of Gaza eventually begins.
Turkey is keen to import liquefied natural gas from Egypt as part of its plan to be a hub for supplies to Europe. It also wants to restart freight shipping between the Turkish port of Mersin and Alexandria in Egypt.
On defense, Turkey is looking for more buyers for its armed drones and armored cars.
Erdogan’s rapprochement with Egypt is part of a broader plan to repair ties with Arab powers and use that to boost the Turkish economy through more investment and exports. He’s made a similar push with the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia in the past two years.
Turkey was at odds with Cairo for much of the past decade — as well as Riyadh and Abu Dhabi — in part because of the 2013 military-backed overthrow of El-Sisi’s predecessor, Mohamed Mursi, an Islamist close to Ankara.
Erdogan, who champions Islamist causes and backed Mursi’s Muslim Brotherhood, was an outspoken critic of El-Sisi long after he came to power. Turkey and Egypt also supported rival sides in regional conflicts, including when a battle was fought over the capital of Libya. In addition, Turkey supported Qatar during an economic embargo by Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain that ran from 2017 to 2021.
--With assistance from Beril Akman and Tarek El-Tablawy.
(Updates starting in first paragraph to reflect the meeting, agreements.)
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