Why Sisi, Erdogan won't be making up anytime soon
Relations between Egypt and Turkey may remain cold as long as Cairo continues to repress the Muslim Brotherhood.
In the last couple of weeks, Ankara has reconciled with two powers it has had rather deleterious relationships with: Israel and Russia. Is Egypt, a key remaining antagonist of Turkey on the international stage, on the brink of finding itself in the midst of a new relationship as well?
Cairo and Ankara have found themselves on the outs since mid-2013 following the removal by the Egyptian military of Mohammed Morsi from the Egyptian presidency. Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood movement were close to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), and the overthrow of his presidency was deeply opposed on a variety of levels by Turkish leaders. The arrest and detention of scores of Brotherhood members and supporters by the Egyptian state following the overthrow only ensured that the relationship suffered further. That crackdown included the forced dispersal of the pro-Morsi sit-ins at the Rabia al-Adawiya Mosque and Nahda Square in Cairo, where around 1,000 Morsi supporters were killed by Egyptian security forces — according to international and Egyptian human rights organizations — and the 2014 resignation of Egyptian Prime Minister Hazem el-Beblawi.
