Samuel Helfont
During the first week of March 2021, the Turkish press highlighted Egypt’s ostensible compliance with disputed Turkish maritime claims in the Eastern Mediterranean. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu quickly welcomed the development, and hinted at negotiations between Cairo and Ankara to establish a maritime boundary, as well as broader rapprochement. These statements represent a strange turn of events, considering the animosity between the two states, and they counter recent trends in the Eastern Mediterranean. Observers of regional geopolitics will need to keep an eye on Egypt, but Turkish reporting probably reveals much more about Turkey’s regional isolation than it does about changes in Cairo. It may also signal a new, more subtle strategy by Ankara to spoil cooperation between Israel, Greece, Cyprus, and Egypt rather than simply to confront them with naval might.
