The Egyptian Foreign Ministry summoned the Turkish charge d'affaires on Saturday for the second time in one month to protest the remarks made by Turkey’s Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, which they deemed offensive to Egypt’s Abdel Fattah Sisi.
In an interview with the CNN’s Becky Anderson, Erdogan has accused Egypt of not having a “sincere approach” towards the situation in Palestine.
Relations between Ankara and Cairo have soured since the army's 3 July ouster of Muslim Brotherhood president Mohamed Morsy, who was an ally of Erdogan. Soon after, tensions rose and Egypt expelled the Turkish ambassador for allegedly "undermining" the country.
Erdogan had previously accused Sisi of being an “illegitimate tyrant”, when asked whether he still stood by his statements, he said, “Well, he is right now a tyrant, I don’t have any doubts about that,” according to CNN’s interview with the Turkish Prime Minister.
The Egyptian Foreign Ministry has threatened to further curtail diplomatic relations between the two countries after Erdogan’s comments.
The Foreign Ministry’s statement described Erdogan's remarks as "absolute judgments that lacked proof, not objective, and were driven by personal considerations."
The Egyptian Foreign Ministry considered Erdogan's statement to be a reflection of “full ignorance and total denial of the political reality in Egypt since the revolution of 30 June up until the implementation of the second step of the road map; which was holding free and fair presidential elections with the participation of thousands of Egyptian as well as regional and international civil society organizations.”
The Ministry had also stated that Erdogan’s comments reflected Turkey’s repeated interference in Egypt’s internal affairs.
The statement went on about how the Egyptian authority was always keen to maintain the relations between the two countries regardless of the ideological differences, however, “the continuation of compromising Egypt’s right and its elected leadership will undoubtedly lead to further actions that will limit the development of the mutual relations between the two countries, and will leave no choice but to limit the relations from a diplomatic level to a business one,” the Ministry stated.
