Citizens of Turkey can now obtain visa on arrival in Egypt

Turkish citizens will now be able to obtain a visa for Egypt on arrival, according to an announcement on Saturday by Turkiye’s charge d’affaires in Cairo.

“Our citizens will be able to enter Egypt without obtaining a visa in advance,” Salih Mutlu Sen said on Twitter, adding the following day that it will be “the first time in the last ten years.”

 “It is expected that a group of Turkish tourists will head to the Egyptian territories from Izmir on a charter plane on April 19.”

لأول مرة خلال العشر سنوات الأخيرة؛

وبعد تسهيل مصر حصول المواطنين الأتراك على تأشيرة دخول مصر ، من المتوقع أن تصل مجموعة من السياح الأتراك الذين سيتوجهون إلى الأراضي المصرية من مدينة إزمير على متن طائرة من النوع (شارتر) يوم 19 أبريل. pic.twitter.com/9GWDZ7nsTJ

— السفير التركي صالح موطلو شن (@TurkishCairoAmb) April 16, 2023

Although there is yet to be an official statement made by the Egyptian government, it was announced late last month that Turkiye was among the countries that Egypt had eased tourist visa restrictions on.

The move comes amid signs of warming ties between the two countries, since breaking off relations in 2013 after the bloody military ouster of Egypt’s late President Mohamed Morsi who was the country’s first democratic leader and a close ally of Turkiye. Diplomatic relations between Cairo and Ankara have been maintained at the level of charge d’affaires since then. The development also comes against the backdrop of wider regional reconciliation efforts among states once considered hostile to each other.

Their first diplomatic contact since severing ties was in 2021 when Egypt and Turkiye agreed to “gradually” restore relations “without any pre-conditions”. In November last year, during the opening ceremony of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was seen shaking hands with his Egyptian counterpart, Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi.

Most recently, last Thursday, Egypt’s Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry visited Ankara for his third talks with his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu in two months. The top diplomats discussed strengthening bilateral ties and the full restoration of diplomatic ties, in addition to the Libyan and Syrian files.