Türkiye, Egypt launched process to appoint ambassadors: Çavuşoğlu

Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu described their meeting with his Egyptian Sameh Shoukry as "open and sincere" and said the process has begun to raise the bilateral relations to the level of ambassadors.

"We agreed to increase our diplomatic relations to the highest level. We have evaluated what steps we will take in the next process," he told reporters after visiting Cairo over the weekend.

The minister said they were planning to announce the work of upgrading diplomatic relations between Egypt and Türkiye after the planned meeting of the presidents. Still, they had declared that the process had started because the meeting of the leaders could be delayed due to the elections in Türkiye.

They have discussed several topics including energy, transportation, investments, logistics, education and culture, Çavuşoğlu noted.

"We agree that we are not rivals to each other in Libya and that we should actually work together for the stability of Libya. We will intensify our consultations on this issue as well," he said.

"The Egyptian side wants Turkish companies to increase their investments in Egypt. Our trade has approached $10 billion. Due to LNG imports, the balance is in their favor, but we are not complaining about it," said Çavuşoğlu.

Türkiye wants to make a longer-term LNG agreement, he said and added, "Thanks to our LNG terminals, we are currently exporting gas to southeast European countries and Balkan countries. Therefore, Egyptian gas can be exported to third countries via Türkiye."

"We even want to sign a long-term contract on LNG. We made such an offer," he added.

Stating that the two parties proposed the establishment of the Joint Economic and Trade Commission (JETCO) mechanism, the establishment of the...