The date of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s visit to Turkey has been finalized, CNN Turk reported.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan visited Cairo on February 14, where he met with his Egyptian counterpart.

After the presidential elections in May 2023 and the re-election of Erdoğan in Turkey, information was leaked from Turkish sources that Al-Sisi was about to visit Ankara, a visit that ultimately has not taken place to date. After all, it was Recep Tayyip Erdogan who visited Cairo first.

The ice between the two presidents began to melt in November 2022, when they shook hands on the sidelines of the FIFA World Cup in Qatar and the mutual appointment of ambassadors by the two countries last summer. After the 2013 military coup in Egypt, relations between the two countries entered a period of crisis and their diplomatic relations were downgraded to a diplomatic level. Recep Tayyip Erdogan had sided with ousted Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi, calling Al-Sisi a “murderer and coup plotter”.

In early August, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan visited Cairo and there he announced that the first meeting of the Turkey-Egypt High Level Strategic Cooperation Council would be held during the Egyptian president’s visit to Turkey and that he and his Egyptian counterpart, Badr Abdelati, discussed the preparatory work for this meeting.

During his visit to Egypt and before his meeting with Abdelati, the Turkish Foreign Minister was received in El Alamein by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, with whom he discussed regional and international issues.

“As two powerful actors in the region, we are determined to be in close cooperation” the head of Turkish diplomacy had stated at the time, noting that “if we behave in a coordinated and concerted manner, this will give strength to the power of our countries” and that “if the if we succeed this will contribute to the peace, stability, security and development of the entire region.”

In their joint statements after the meeting, Hakan Fidan said that he discussed with the Egyptian Foreign Minister “and for energy issues that are of strategic importance” stressing that Ankara considers Egypt a long-term reliable partner in this field. “We also had the opportunity to talk about our capabilities in this area, especially in the field of energy and nuclear energy,” the Turkish minister said.

The two sides have set a goal of increasing the volume of trade between them to $15 billion within the next five years.