News reports state that Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi will visit Turkey on September 4 and meet with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan, which is seen as another sign of Ankara’s rapprochement with Cairo.
However, Turkey’s reconciliation with Egypt is also of concern to Athens.
This is because Greece’s agreement for the partial demarcation of the sea boundaries with Egypt is so far the most powerful, substantial and legal argument Athens has against the views put forward by Turkey in the so-called Turkish-Libyan maritime memorandum, which encroaches upon its sovereignty and that of other Eastern Mediterranean countries.
The upcoming visit was announced by the CNN Turk TV network and Sabah newspaper, citing Turkish sources. Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, who had contacts in Cairo in early August, said that the first meeting of the Turkey-Egypt High-Level Strategic Cooperation Council will take place during the Egyptian president’s visit to Turkey, and that he discussed preparations for this meeting with his Egyptian counterpart.
So far, there has been no formal notification about the visit.
