Egypt’s foreign minister Sameh Shoukry stressed on Wednesday to Arab ministers the necessity of adopting a "unified and firm Arab policy" against Turkey’s "destructive" practices.
In a speech during the Arab League’s hosted ministerial committee concerned with Turkish interventions in Arab states, Shoukry said the "flagrant Turkish interventions and practices in several Arab states represent the most emerging threats facing Arab national security."
Shoukry reviewed Turkey s "blatant practices" in several Arab states which are causing societal and sectarian divisions in the region.
He shed light on evidence reflecting the size of Turkish interventions in Arab nations, including facilitating the crossover of tens of thousands of terrorists and mercenaries to Syria and dispatching thousands of fighters to Libya.
Shoukry highlighted rejection of the Turkish encroachment on resources in Iraq as well as Ankara s signing of an "illegitimate memoranda of understanding" with the government in Tripoli.
Egypt has repeatedly stressed its rejection of Turkey’s political and military interference in Arab affairs, describing them as "expansionist" and “lacking any legitimate basis.”
Tensions between the two countries escalated in the past months over Ankara s military intervention in war-torn Libya, its violation of Iraq s sovereignty, as well as Ankara s hunt for gas in the eastern Mediterranean in violation of the territorial waters of Greece and Cyprus, two close allies of Egypt.
Egypt has had strained relations with Turkey since the 2013 ouster of Egypt’s late Islamist president Mohamed Morsi, a close ally of Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan’s government.
Cairo has repeatedly condemned Ankara s support for the terrorist-designated Muslim Brotherhood.
