Turkey's Erdogan to visit Cairo with Syria high on agenda
Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is set to meet Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi in Cairo with talks focused on Syria, as Egypt turns to Ankara to allay concerns about Syria’s new government.
Erdogan will attend a summit of developing nations, called the D-8, in the Egyptian capital on 19 December, one Egyptian official told Middle East Eye on Friday.
Egypt initially extended the invitation to Erdogan before the government of Bashar al-Assad was toppled in an offensive led by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a Turkish official confirmed to Middle East Eye on Friday.
Since then, Egyptian officials have looked to secure Erdogan’s visit as Sisi seeks direct talks with the Turkish leader on Syria, the Egyptian official said.
The visit underscores how Erdogan’s regional influence has expanded with the Assad government gone and Syrian rebels establishing a transition government in Damascus.
Erdogan was a longtime backer of Syrian rebels, and Turkey's spy chief, Ibrahim Kalin, was in Damascus on Thursday, giving them unrivalled influence over the group, western and regional officials say.
During his visit, Turkey’s National Intelligence Organisation (MIT) chief, Ibrahim Kalin, was filmed in the Syrian capital. He was surrounded by armed bodyguards as he visited the Umayyad Mosque.
Kalin was later filmed being driven around Damascus by HTS military leader Abu Mohammad al-Jolani in a black sedan.
The US, EU and Turkey have labelled HTS, which is a former al-Qaeda affiliate, a terror group.
MEE reported previously that US officials have discussed the merits of removing layers of the terror designation.
Turkey’s ties to Syrian rebels go back to the 2011 Arab Spring when Turkey backed popular protests against Arab leaders. Turkey has traditionally held the greatest influence over what is now known as the Syrian National Army, formerly known as the Free Syrian Army.
The toppling of the Assad government, which had previously reconciled with Arab leaders despite hosting Iranian troops, has unnerved Arab states, including Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and even Qatar, with concerns about the former al-Qaeda affiliate taking power in Syria.
However, that hasn't stopped the meetings between HTS’s political affairs office and the ambassadors of Egypt, the UAE, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia earlier this week. HTS reassured them of plans to create an inclusive government that would not harbour terrorists, the Egyptian official told MEE.
A Qatari official told Reuters on Friday that it would meet with the Syrian interim government on Sunday to discuss reopening an embassy and facilitating humanitarian aid deliveries.
The collapse of the Assad government dealt a strategic blow to Iran’s so-called "axis of Resistance", severing its main supply line to Lebanese Hezbollah.
Egypt as a bridge between Turkey and Iran
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian is expected to attend the Cairo summit, and Sisi hopes to broker talks between Erdogan and his Iranian counterpart.
The Cairo summit comes amid a flurry of regional diplomacy. Jordan, which supports a constellation of southern Syrian rebel groups, is set to host a Syria summit with Arab, Turkish and US diplomats on Saturday.
However, the Erdogan-Sisi meeting will likely be the first between an Arab leader and Erdogan since HTS toppled the Assad government.
Egypt was ground zero for a regional battle for influence that played out between Ankara and Qatar on one side and Saudi Arabia and the UAE on the other during the Arab Spring.
Sisi ousted Egypt’s democratically elected Muslim Brotherhood president in a coup. Erdogan supported Morsi and, until a few years ago, refused to meet with Sisi, famously declaring, “I will never talk to someone like him”.
The two countries backed opposing sides in Libya’s civil war, with Egypt working with Russia and the UAE to support Libyan military chief Khalifa Haftar against a government in Tripoli backed by Turkish forces and mercenaries.
Erdogan and Sisi later reconciled and paid reciprocal visits to each other’s countries in 2024.
Syria is shaping up to be a test of whether Arab states can put aside their old grudges as they look to navigate what analysts say is likely to be an unstable transition.
HTS includes an array of foreign fighters in its ranks.
Meanwhile, separate Turkish-backed Syrian rebels are fighting with the Syrian Democratic Forces, a US-backed offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), a group designated as a terrorist organisation by the US and Turkey.
Turkey hopes that stability in Syria will allow the roughly three million Syrian refugees there to return to their country.
Along with exercising political influence over a future Syrian government, Turkey could also play a significant part in Syria’s reconstruction, which the UN estimates at $400bn.
Egypt has long played a dominant role in the postwar reconstruction efforts of the Gaza Strip. The Egyptian official said Sisi and Erdogan will discuss reconstruction.
