The path of solution – The Muslim Brotherhood in Turkey pays the price of reconciliation with Egypt

The 10-year conflict between Egypt and Syria on the one hand and Turkey on the other, accompanied by conflict and bloodshed in Syria, is coming to an end. The Turkish Presidency plans to mend relations with Egypt and Syria to normalize, with the recent progress being led by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, where the reconciliation process began in 2021, in the city of Alaa in Saudi Arabia. Since then, Cairo and Ankara have continued to seek and innovate for reconciliation and settlement, and important positive results have finally been achieved.

Major crises

According to the American magazine “Modern Diplomat,” reconciliation between Egypt and Turkey was not at the level of leadership, until the World Cup provided the grounds for the meeting between Abdul Fattah el-Sisi and Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Doha during the opening ceremony of the World Cup, the meeting of the United Nations Secretary General between the two countries’ presidents was not aimed at distancing them from each other, and it seems that the Egyptians and Turks prepared for this occasion a few weeks ago, and regardless of political compliments, reconciliation between Egypt and Turkey is very important, because the continued tension between the two countries can lead to many dangerous developments.

The relations between Egypt and Turkey were strained after the overthrow of the government of Mohamed Morsi in 2013. At that time, it became clear to political observers that this contradiction would continue for a long time and would not end soon; This is why the security services in Egypt and the military responded to the demands of millions of angry protesters to put an end to the Brotherhood’s rule. After that, the Muslim Brotherhood took Istanbul as its alternate capital, and began their plans and efforts to return to power from there. This led to a crisis in relations between Egypt and Turkey, and, over time, increased opposition between the two countries.

Contentious issues

According to the American magazine, in the past year and a half, the governments of Turkey and Egypt held several meetings to resolve the dispute and end the disputed issues, and were able to achieve great successes on the security and media levels, where Ankara somehow stopped the activity of the Muslim Brotherhood in Turkish territories, but the reconciliation between the two sides was not complete, and the disagreement on how to manage the crisis of the Libyan war and the dispute over territorial waters in the Mediterranean remained unresolved. In the case of Libya, Turkey supports one of the parties to the conflict, while Egypt supports the other party. Libya plays a vital role for Egypt from a security standpoint, which is an important market for Turkey, in addition to that Libya has a lot of debt to Turkey since the Gaddafi government.

On the other hand, after the discovery of the gas fields in the Mediterranean waters, which are believed to contain a large amount of energy, there was a disagreement between Egypt, Turkey and Greece over the territorial waters in the Mediterranean, and Egypt and Greece managed to find a solution to overcome this challenge, ignoring Turkey, the magazine continued.

It noted that ending the tension between Egypt and Turkey is extremely important, as achieving this goal may help end the war in Libya, and this in itself is reason enough for optimism about the ongoing efforts for reconciliation between the two countries, but the price of this reconciliation will be paid by the Muslim Brotherhood outside Egypt.

“The path of reconciliation between Damascus and Ankara is of course chaotic and very dangerous, and it is so difficult to reach the stage of reconciliation between the two countries that, according to Erdogan, if he himself goes to Damascus, he will not be able to find a quick solution to end this complex crisis, as Turkey and Syria have been fighting indirectly for more than 10 years.” “In addition, there are many military powers, so any solution to end the crisis must take into account previous factors, as all parties want an end to the war in Syria, but the path to this goal is still far off.”