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Turkey president rejects thaw with Egypt after Israel, Russia normalization

Tuesday, 05 July 2016 10:24 AM [ Last Update: Tuesday, 05 July 2016 11:16 AM ]

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan ©AFP

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has ruled out reconciliation with Egypt in the wake of Ankara’s decision to normalize relations with Russia and Israel last week.

Relations between Ankara and Cairo have soured since Egypt’s first democratically-elected president and a close ally of Erdogan’s ruling party, Mohamed Morsi, was ousted in a military coup in 2013.

The Turkish leader said on Tuesday reconciliation with Egypt's “oppressive regime” will not take place any time soon.

There have been speculations that Turkey may mend ties with Egypt particularly after it restored relations with Moscow and Tel Aviv.

“The context with Egypt is different from the approaches undertaken with Russia and Israel,” Dogan news agency quoted the Turkish president as saying.

He also told reporters that Ankara’s row was with Egypt’s government, not its people, denouncing once again the crackdown on Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood.

“Sentences handed down to Morsi and his friends have been based on fabrications,” Erdogan said.

“These people are our brothers, we cannot accept these decisions by an oppressive regime,” he said.

Saudi Arabia, a staunch Turkish ally and a main backer of Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, is interested in seeing the two countries reconcile.

The Egyptian government has been engaged in a crackdown on the opposition since Morsi was ousted in a military coup led by Sisi as the army chief.

Sisi has been accused of leading the suppression of Morsi’s supporters. Hundreds of the Morsi supporters have been killed in clashes with security forces since the ouster.

Rights groups say the army’s crackdown has led to the deaths of over 1,400 people and the arrest of 22,000 others, including some 200 people who have been sentenced to death in mass trials.

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