Al-Watan, Egypt, Originally Posted in Arabic on November 6
The painful truth is that we, as Egyptians, must come to terms with the Turkish Justice and Development Party, led by Recep Tayyip Erdogan, which won the recent parliamentary elections. Their victory was so unequivocal, that the party will not even need to form a coalition in order to rule the country in upcoming years.
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In less than one year, Erdogan proved to be a great statesman who successfully planned his return to power. And despite the fact that he represents everything we fear in Egypt – a Muslim-brotherhood-backed Islamic regime – Erdogan has been elected in free and democratic elections.
Therefore, we must come to terms with him and put past disputes behind our two countries. Our focus must be directed at achieving two principal objectives between the two countries. First, we must break the political stalemate between Cairo and Ankara, which began after the Muslim Brotherhood, Erdogan’s close ally, was removed from power. Second, we must use the positive developments in relations between Saudi Arabia and Turkey as a platform to promote these new ties.
How can all of this be possible, one may ask?
I would argue that we have witnessed relations between powers in the Middle East change very swiftly. Just several weeks ago it would have been hard to imagine Russia intervening in Syria, or Iran signing a deal with the Americans. Today all of these things proved possible.
Let’s have faith in our country’s power to create a better future. Let’s put the strained relations with Ankara behind us. – Emad al-Din Adib