Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan will represent Turkey at a ministerial meeting of the Arab League that will convene in Cairo on Tuesday, the first time Turkey has attended such a gathering since 2011, Deutsche Welle Turkish service reported, citing diplomatic sources.
Fidan is expected to discuss Israel’s ongoing war on Gaza war and ties with Arab League countries with whom relations have been put back on track in recent years after years-long tensions.
A Turkish source said the invitation to Fidan reflected a “growing interest” in Turkey’s regional role and improving ties with Arab League members, adding that Ankara wanted to increase institutional ties and cooperation with the group.
Turkey’s attendance at the Arab League summit takes place shortly after a visit Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi paid to Turkey last week for the first time in 12 years, as the two regional powers work to repair relations that were severely strained after the ouster of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood-backed president in 2013.
The visit came after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s trip to Cairo in February, where he and Sisi discussed increasing economic and political cooperation.
Over the past years, Turkey has also repaired ties with other energy-rich Gulf countries such as the United Arab Emirates, with which it had been at odds in the decade following the Arab Spring revolts, and Saudi Arabia over the 2018 murder of a Saudi journalist in İstanbul.
Erdoğan is also seeking to normalize relations with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad after he supported early rebel efforts to topple him when civil war broke out in the country in 2011, but reversed course in recent years.
Since 2022, top Syrian and Turkish officials have met for Russia-mediated talks, with Moscow pushing for a detente.
The 22-member Arab League is a regional organization in the Arab world established in Cairo in 1945.
With the support of 18 of its 22 members, the Arab League voted to suspend Syria from the organization due to the acts of violence committed by the Syrian regime and, further, imposed sanctions on the regime. In May 2023, Syria’s membership status was reinstated.
The last time Turkey attended an Arab League summit was in 2011, when Erdoğan represented the country as then-prime minister.
