Pro-govt newspaper lays out conditions for repairing Egypt's relations with Turkey

The editor-in-chief for Egypt's pro-government Al-Watan newspaper has shared the conditions that would have to be met by Turkey before Ankara-Cairo relations, effectively frozen for almost a decade, can improve. 

Ahmed Elkateeb, Al-Watan's editor-in-chief, took to Facebook to lay out 10 terms on Saturday that would influence whether or not Egypt restored its ties with Turkey. Chief among them were demands that Turkey sort out more of its problems with its other neighbours, who it has clashed with in recent years ,notably Greece, Cyprus, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Turkish officials sparked speculation in recent weeks when they announced that diplomatic contacts were taking place with Egypt. These followed other reports filtering out of Turkish media that suggested Egypt was ready to strike a maritime deal in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Cairo shot down these rumours and reaffirmed that it remained committed to existing partnerships it has with Greece and Cyprus at sea. 

The UAE and Saudi Arabia are also Egypt's two largest allies in the Middle East. After the coup that brought President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi to power in 2013, Abu Dhabi and Riyadh lent their support to his regime to keep it afloat.

That same year, Turkey declared Egypt's ambassador persona non grata and effectively froze the relationship over the imprisonment of former Egyptian leader Mohammad Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood. 

Among Elkateeb's listed conditions were previous calls made by Egypt including withdrawing from neighbouring Libya, Syria and Iraq. Egypt has panned each of these as Turkish interventions into Arab affairs, influencing its calls on other Arab states to adopt a unified front against Turkey.

Cairo was on the brink of deploying its military into Libya last summer when a Turkish-backed offensive drove the Egyptian-supported Libyan National Army (LNA) under Khalifa Haftar away from Tripoli. United Nations sponsored talks effectively froze talks about a wider military conflict involving Egypt and Turkey directly.

The stickiest of demands to be met would be the request to shut down all outlets belonging to the Muslim Brotherhood and a pledge from Turkey to cease supporting their activities on its soil. 

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) are of the same political lineage from the Muslim Brotherhood. It is for that reason Erdogan so strongly supported Morsi's short-lived government in Egypt and partly explains his support for Libya's Government of National Accords (GNA) that counts Brotherhood-backed elements as a part of it.

Turkey has for years been a home for exiles, often Muslim Brotherhood members, from across the Arab world.