Turkey, Egypt to boost alliance

Dozens of ministers from Turkey and Egypt will gather in Cairo in November in a bid to boost their alliance, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Sunday.

"Accompanied by 13 ministers, I will be in Cairo in early November" for the meeting of a high-level strategic council established between the two countries to boost ties, Erdogan told a news conference with Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi in Ankara.

"I am fully confident that the meeting ... will bring about very important results," Erdogan said.

Morsi praised Turkey for standing by the Egyptian people during and after the revolution that toppled president Hosni Mubarak of Egypt in February 2011, and said Cairo would never hesistate to establish a partnership with Ankara.

The Egyptian president, who addressed the AKP congress early in the day, lauded Erdogan's party as a "source of inspiration" for the region.

Egyptian Finance Minister Mumtaz al-Said told his country's official MENA news agency that the two sides had reached agreement on a Turkish loan of $1 billion (780 million euros) which the two leaders would sign later Sunday.

He said the loan formed part of a Turkish aid package worth a total of $2 billion dollars that he announced earlier this month.   
 

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