Sameh Shoukry

Türkiye's chief diplomat was in Cairo on March 18 for talks with Egyptian officials as the regional powers seek to mend their frayed ties after years of tensions.

Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, Türkiye's foreign minister, landed in the Egyptian capital early Saturday. He was the highest-ranking Turkish official to visit the Arab World's most populous nation in over a decade.

Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu will pay a one-day visit to Egypt on March 18 amid ongoing efforts to mend ties between Ankara and Cairo.

Çavuşoğlu will be the first senior Turkish official to visit Egypt in the last decade.

Egypt announced on Jan. 2 the recovery of a sarcophagus lid dating back nearly 2,700 years that it said had been smuggled out and put on display at a museum in the United States.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry announced the recovery of the artifact, known as the "Green Sarcophagus," during a televised press conference.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said relations between Egypt and Turkey have seen progress.

"The issue (of normalizing relations) has not yet reached the next step but there is some progress that we hope we will build on," Shoukry said in an interview with the local MBC Egypt channel late on Oct. 1. 

Egypt has praised recent steps by Turkey towards normalizing ties between the two countries.

Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said in a TV interview late on July 3 that the softening of criticism towards the Egyptian government by Turkey-based opposition channels was preparing the ground for normalizing relations.

Turkey is seeking to establish new mechanisms for discussing bilateral issues with Egypt, the spokesman of the ruling Justine and Development Party (AKP) has said, informing that a senior delegation of the Foreign Ministry will travel to Cairo to discuss the road map for the normalization of ties.

The foreign ministers of Turkey and Egypt spoke by phone on April 10, the Turkish foreign ministry said, their first direct contact since a push by Ankara to improve strained ties between the regional powerhouses.

The two ministers exchanged good wishes over the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, which starts next week, the ministry added, but gave no further details.

The foreign ministers of Greece, Cyprus and Egypt, Nikos Dendias, Nikos Christodoulides and Sameh Shoukry, along with their French counterpart Jean-Yves Le Drian, on Wednesday jointly denounced two memorandums of understanding signed between Turkey and the Tripoli-based government in Libya as illegal and invalid.

Against the backdrop of unfolding events in Libya, the foreign ministers of Greece, Cyprus and Egypt, Nikos Dendias, Nikos Christodoulides and Sameh Shoukry respectively, will on Wednesday hold a trilateral summit in Cairo with the participation of their French and Italian counterparts Jean-Yves Le Drian and Luigi Di Maio. 

Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry has contacted Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias and Cypriot Foreign Minister Nikos Christodoulides on the telephone to discuss "the dangerous escalation on Turkey's part" with respect to Libya, as well as the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates.