President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in a desperate attempt to court Egypt away from Greece has come up with a hilarious statement saying that ties between Egyptian and Turkish peoples are closer than those with Greeks.
"The friendship between the Egyptian and Turkish peoples is greater than the relations between the Egyptian and Greek peoples," Erdoğan said according to Sky News Arabia.
أردوغان: الصداقة بين الشعبين المصري والتركي أكبر من العلاقات بين الشعبين المصري واليوناني
— سكاي نيوز عربية-عاجل (@SkyNewsArabia_B) March 12, 2021
Of course this ignores that Greek-Egyptian relations have existed since the earliest Bronze Age civilisations, beginning with the Ancient Minoans of Crete and the early kingdoms of Egypt.
The Turks did not even arrive in Egypt until 4,000 years after Greeks and Egyptians began trading with each other.
Erdoğan is immensely frustrated that efforts to push Egypt away from Greece have failed due to the strength of the two countries strategic relationship.
With this failure, Turkish media created fake news that Cairo and Ankara were negotiating maritime zones, something categorically denied by Egypt.
Among the fake news created by the Turkish government and disseminated by the media, Cairo emphasised that any negotiations on sea zones with Turkey would also include Greece and not without.
In response to Erdoğan's desperate attempts to court Cairo away from Athens, Egyptian social media lit up.
Just a reminder ✌️ pic.twitter.com/QR34ZIvkIr
— Mohamed Mansour 🇪🇬 (@Mansourtalk) March 12, 2021
I invite people to read the comments
Massive overwhelming voices saying our relations with Greece is deeper,better & respectable
Turks must read feelings of Egyptians who suffered from Turkish terror since'13 & ask how Armenians, Kurds & Cypriots feel with decades of aggression https://t.co/SB2Zjwws2t
— sherif ahmed 🇪🇬 (@SherifT78060270) March 12, 2021
no we love greece more https://t.co/TcgGyzn8jp
— EGYPTER 🇪🇬 𓂀 (@egypter9) March 12, 2021
😂😂😂 https://t.co/FZMFAEvKPt pic.twitter.com/C4kwYTHQ65
— ۛ ּمۘــدحۡــٺ ا̍بــۏٰا̍ڸــ؏ــڕبــۑْۧ17 (@QShqabCYTXdSNWe) March 12, 2021
https://t.co/yviuyJsyar pic.twitter.com/2PFqHOuG9g
— Mhmdalshahed (@mhmd_shahed1969) March 12, 2021
https://twitter.com/EngThePast/status/1370376413354860548
READ MORE: Egypt denies Turkey’s *claims* of talks on East Med, says committed to Greece.