Sameh Shoukry to represent Egypt in OIC summit in Turkey

Ahmed Abbas
2 Min Read
Egypt’s Foreign Minister Sameh Shourky has arrived in New York City to participate in an international summit on Syria on Friday, according to a foreign-ministry statement.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs Sameh Shoukry will head the Egyptian delegation in the 13th round of the Organisation of Islamic Countries (OIC) to be held in Istanbul.

The summit will discuss various pertinent topics, such as the Syrian and Palestinian cases and the efforts to end the conflict in Yemen and Libya, according to Foreign Ministry spokesperson Ahmed Abou Zeid.

Egypt will put an emphasis on discussion of counter-terrorism efforts in the framework of OIC, Abou Zeid said.

Deputy Foreign Minister Hesham Badr represented Egypt during the preparatory meetings in Turkey between foreign ministers prior to the summit.

Relations between Cairo and Ankara have majorly declined since the ouster of former president Mohamed Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood government on 3 July 2013.

The Turkish presidency’s spokesperson, Ibrahim Kalin, denounced reports about Saudi Arabia playing the role of mediator in efforts to ease tension between Egypt and Turkey.

When asked whether Egyptian-Turkish relations will be on the agenda of Saudi King Salman bin Abdul Aziz Al-Saud’s visit, Kalin said Turkish policy towards Egypt is well-known and has not changed.

“King’s Salman’s visit to Turkey after his five-day visit to Egypt does not relate to this issue,” said Kalin.

The Saudi King arrived in Turkey on Monday, a couple of days ahead of the OIC summit on 14 April.

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Ahmed Abbas is a journalist at DNE’s politics section. He previously worked as Egypt based reporter for Correspondents.org, and interned as a broadcast journalist at Deutsche Welle TV in Berlin. Abbas is a fellow of Salzburg Academy of Media and Global Change. He holds a Master’s Degree of Journalism and New Media from Jordan Media Institute. He was awarded by the ICFJ for best public service reporting in 2013, and by the German foreign office for best feature in 2014.