Egypt FM Sameh Shoukry to visit Turkey and Syria for first time in decade

Sameh Shoukry, who is Egypt's foreign minister, will visit disaster-hit Turkey and Syria on Monday morning, news agencies citing his office. It will be the first such visit in a decade of tense relations between both countries.

The foreign ministry statement said the trip is aimed at showing "solidarity with the two countries and their brotherly peoples" in the aftermath of devastating earthquakes that jolted both Syria and Turkey earlier this month, killing over 46,000 people in both countries.

Shoukry had a phone conversation on Saturday with the Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu to discuss the massive impact of the earthquakes.

Hurriyet Daily News reported citing Turkish diplomatic sources that the two top diplomats exchanged views on developments regarding Turkey's earthquake on February 6.

Previously, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi had extended condolences to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for the victims of the earthquakes.

A day after the earthquake, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi called his Syrian counterpart Bashar al-Assad, which was the first official exchange between the two leaders. On the same day, Sisi also spoke with Erdogan.

Egypt last week said that its Armed Forces sent two military jets carrying medical aid and a cargo ship carrying food to Turkey. As mentioned by the news outlet, the Egyptian ship loaded with humanitarian aid arrived at Mersin port on February 22.

The civilian group said that a series of plane and navy shipments of "hundreds of tonnes of medical aid" followed along with "a technical team" supporting rescue operations with the White Helmets in northwest Syria.

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