Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry on Saturday said that dialogue between Egypt and Turkey has stopped because Turkey did not show any signs of changing its Libya policies.

The “exploratory dialogue sessions” between Egypt and Turkey began last year to discuss the “necessary steps to normalize relations” at the bilateral level and in the regional context. However, the dialogue “stopped after two rounds, because there was no change in Turkey’s practices in Libya,” Shoukry said in an interview with Al-Arabiya. 

Shoukry said that parties to the conflict should respect the Skhirat agreement and called on the United Nations and the concerned authorities to deal with the legitimate government of Libya, referring to the Fathi Bashagha government.

The relations between Turkey and Egypt worsened after the 2013 Egyptian coup which toppled Mohamed Morsi, the Muslim Brotherhood president close to Ankara.

Turkey and Egypt also both backed different factions in the Libyan Civil War and sealed conflicting maritime deals in the Mediterranean. 

In early 2021, normalization between the countries began after years of diplomatic tension. In April 2021, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said “a new period was beginning” between Turkey and Egypt as senior officials from both countries held talks.

Earlier this month, Greece and Egypt both opposed the controversial hydrocarbon deal signed between Turkey and Libya’s interim Tripoli government over the disputed waters of the Eastern Mediterranean.