Has Morsi turned in his grave!

Sisi arrived in Ankara yesterday.

There was a sweet bustle at the Palace; because this was to be the first presidential-level visit from Egypt to Turkey in 12 years.

Tayyip got up and went all the way to Esenboğa to personally welcome this important guest.

He shook his hand at the plane's door, and after a few words of welcome on the tarmac, he took him into his car and brought him to his palace in Beştepe.

The official welcoming ceremony, national anthems, one-on-one meeting, High-Level Strategic Cooperation Council meeting, official dinner, and so on. These are the aspects of the matter marketed to the people of our country, if anyone is curious.

Under normal circumstances, it is expected that such contacts between countries like Turkey and Egypt would yield significant results that would also affect developments in the region. For example, 17 separate agreements were signed between the two countries yesterday. During the meetings, Tayyip brought up the Gaza issue, and Sisi supported Turkey's rapprochement with Syria. We will learn the parts of these contacts that will benefit the government from the sycophantic writers today or tomorrow anyway.

But as far as I can follow, not many people are getting hung up on these aspects of the visit.

While the opposition camp is launching a salvo, criticizing His Excellency for now being arm-in-arm with Sisi—whom he once insulted, and repeatedly called a "putschist," "murderer," "tyrant," "pharaoh," and "dictator," and said he would "never meet"—the other camp is trying to walk the line with the rote mantra that "there is no eternal friendship or enmity in relations between countries, there are only the interests of countries."

This is the instruction they received from the Palace. It's not like they can just stand up and say, "What is this contradiction?"

The whole world knows that foreign policy depends on a single sentence that might come out of His Majesty's lips.

Therefore, no matter which agreements are signed, which understandings are reached, or which statements are made; if the President wakes up on the wrong side of the bed that day, he can turn everything upside down with a single sentence.

But what really catches my attention is that "experts" who know these issues well, both on news channels and on social media, are persistently and stubbornly still looking for a "rational mind" in Tayyip's foreign policy.

With this, they are providing legitimacy, one way or another, to the government's self-serving, merchant-like mentality that always looks out for itself, and to the paradigm of political Islamist politics.

For example, with what "rational" mind can the bill for the support given to jihadists in Syria, just so the Muslim Brotherhood could come to power, be explained to Turkey?

The foreign policy he has pursued for 22 years has neither logic nor a "rational" mind behind it.

When he came to power with the grudge and hatred he had accumulated against the Republic, its values, its philosophy, its institutions, and everyone who was not like them, the "rational" mind of the state also disappeared.

In foreign affairs, the rational foreign policy based on years of experience, established on the delicate balances of interstate relations weighed as if on a jeweler's scale, and based on national interests, has been replaced by the adolescent fantasies traumatized by Islamism, empty desires inflated with false historical information and superstitions, and unbridled personal ambitions.

Reflexive outbursts, which were not calculated and often resulted in backpedaling, were sold to the people of our country as "strong, honorable politics."

He was never interested in foreign policy being a matter of calculation.

The only calculation he made was, "How can I sell this domestically?"

He fortified his base and mass with rhetoric of religion, faith, homeland, and nation; he turned those who opposed him into enemies and even labeled them "terrorists" or "traitors" without hesitation.

He never took off his Sunni glasses or his Muslim Brotherhood shirt.

With the Arab Spring, the Muslim Brotherhood would take control in the Middle East and North Africa, and he would reign in Istanbul as a postmodern caliph.

But it didn't happen.

His masters in the West canceled the project. Not only that, they put the Brotherhood in a corner of the theater until the next game.

In short, there is no "rational mind" behind his retreat to the point of shaking hands and sitting at the same table today with those he said everything to yesterday.

He likes to play the ball as it comes. It is like this for now, but as for what will happen tomorrow, only God knows.

But the real problem for Turkey here is not that the others are acting on empty dreams adorned with superstitions, but that they are acting according to their own national interests.

For example, after souring relations with Egypt, Turkey constantly lost ground in the Middle East and the Eastern Mediterranean in political, strategic, and military terms. Greece did not miss this opportunity and signed an exclusive economic zone delimitation agreement with Egypt four years ago. If Egypt had made this agreement with Turkey, it would have had rights over a much larger area in the Eastern Mediterranean. Turkey's hand would also have been strengthened against both Greece and the Greek Cypriots.

But, an ideological perspective and a love for Morsi took precedence over the country's interests. It pushed Egypt into the arms of Greece and the Greek Cypriot Administration of Southern Cyprus.

In past years, I asked a retired bureaucrat who knows political Islamists well, "Is the reason he is so reactive to Sisi just because he toppled the Muslim Brotherhood from power?"

He replied, "He puts himself in Morsi's place and identifies with him." It was clear that Morsi's overthrow by a military coup and his being sent to the gallows had triggered the fears in his subconscious. This was the background to his harboring such great hatred for Sisi and perhaps even his allergy to the military. Yet, he should have been the first to know that the eras of coups in Turkey were long gone.

In short, we will wait and see if this visit will be a milestone in relations. Sisi said at the palace, "My visit reflects the will to start a new cooperation between the two countries." The conditions and developments in the region make the rapprochement between Turkey and Egypt necessary, but on a "rational" basis. Diplomacy does not work with religion, faith, sect, or Muslim Brotherhood ideology.

Whether he can return to a rational basis in foreign policy should be the subject of another article.

In conclusion, let us ask, "Has Morsi turned in his grave when he saw Tayyip and Sisi hand in hand from the other side?" and leave the answer to the discernment of our readers as we put a period to our article.