Turkey and Egypt are tightening their security cooperation

These are not the countries’ first joint exercises: in April of last year, Egypt’s special forces arrived for joint training in the Ankara area, while in September, the joint naval exercise “Friendship Seas” took place in the eastern Mediterranean. At the political level, Presidents Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Recep Tayyip Erdogan met in Cairo in February this year.

until recently, Such an event would seem completely absurd because of two key aspects: Turkish President Erdogan is a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, and this movement poses the greatest domestic threat to Egyptian President al-Sisi. On top of that, in 2019, Ankara signed a “maritime border” agreement with Libya, which invented such a border between the countries out of nowhere, at the expense of Greece and near Egypt.

However, there is now a commonality of interests, and mainly a commonality of concerns, between Ankara and Cairo. Turkey was greatly embarrassed by the situation in which its NATO partners were required to intercept Iranian ballistic missiles on its territory, and in the case of Egypt – the Houthi rebels, Iran’s emissaries in Yemen, caused severe economic damage due to the blockade of Bab al-Mandab.

Diplomatic relations “with precipitation”

Beyond that, Egypt’s peace agreement with Israel is strong and exists and the Egyptians operate an embassy in Tel Aviv, but the sediments between the countries still exist. Every year Egypt celebrates the holiday “October 6th”, in which it celebrates the apparent victory in the Yom Kippur War. This is one of the reasons why the significant military strengthening of Cairo in recent years arouses concern, or at least surprise, in Jerusalem, since Egypt faces no significant threats within its borders.

In the case of Turkey, in Ankara Don’t even try to hide their perception that Israel is the “greatest threat” in the region. Erdogan and his people are trying to echo conspiracy theories against Israel, including the “Greater Israel” theory according to which – according to them – Israel wants to occupy large areas in the Middle East up to eastern Turkey. However, as much as these theories are unfounded, they still find a listening ear among many circles in the country.