Why Turkey and Egypt won’t reconcile anytime soon

On July 26, the Egyptian parliament took steps toward approving a resolution to recognize the 1915 Armenian genocide at the hands of Ottoman Turks, marking a new turn in a bitter row that has all but severed diplomatic ties between Egypt and Turkey. The motion was presented to parliament by legislator Mustafa Bakry, a controversial politician with a track record of championing polarizing policies that favor increasing state powers. It highlighted the increasingly detrimental influence of regime hard-liners on Egypt’s regional policies, as a wave of political attacks against Turkey’s president following the failed coup attempt renewed tensions and threatened to damage relations with Ankara beyond repair. 

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been at loggerheads with the current Egyptian administration since his close ally, former Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi, was ousted by the military in 2013. However, statements by members of his ruling Justice and Development Party shortly before the attempted coup indicated that Turkey’s attitude toward Egypt had begun to shift. Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim sent a conciliatory message to Egypt in a speech July 11, expressing Turkey’s desire to improve relations. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu raised the possibility of restoring commercial and economic ties and suggested holding a ministerial level meeting to reach a solution that serves the interests of both nations. “There were some Turkish signals toward Cairo, an attempt to move on with relations,” former Egyptian Ambassador Mohamed Anis Salem, who currently heads the UN Working Group at the Egyptian Council for Foreign Affairs, told Al-Monitor.

At the same time, multiple points of conflict with neighboring states have left Turkey with fewer allies in the Middle East. This helped push the rhetoric of normalization forward, as Turkey sought to increase its regional clout, according to Tarek Fahmy, a professor of international relations at Cairo University. “Mending frayed ties with Egypt and the [Bashar al-] Assad regime in Syria were next on the agenda following reconciliation with Israel and Russia,” he said.

But any such plans have been derailed by a salvo of diplomatic assaults launched against the Turkish leadership by Egyptian officials who feared that Erdogan’s victory would embolden Egypt’s embattled Islamists to act against the country’s current leaders. “Muslim Brothers and their allies now view Erdogan as a model for plotting their unlikely return to power in Egypt,” the Washington Institute’s Eric Trager suggested. Trager quotes exiled Muslim Brotherhood leader Gamal Heshmat, who told WAM Times that Turkey’s failed coup might even encourage revolutionaries inside and outside Egypt to “unify around the goal of ending this coup."