Turkey's stillborn posting to Egypt derailed by coup

ANKARA

This week’s shocking death of Mohamed Morsi in an Egyptian courtroom brought back memories for Ahmet Yildiz, the Turkish diplomat appointed six years ago to be ambassador to Egypt, though the day democracy suffered a defeat changed his plans.

During Morsi’s one-year abbreviated tenure as Egypt’s first democratically elected president, Yildiz got word of his new posting: Turkey’s top diplomat in Cairo.

As spring turned to summer in 2013, Yildiz, then ambassador to the Balkan nation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, made arrangements for his new assignment: He sent his belongings to Cairo, gathered his children’s school records, and even got tickets for a flight to Egypt in early July.

But before going to Egypt he made an appointment to consult in the Turkish capital Ankara with Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan, then serving as prime minister, as well as then-President Abdullah Gul.

They were set to meet on July 3, 2013.

It was on that very same day, however, that President Morsi was deposed in a bloody coup by Egypt’s military.

Dark days

Since the coup, Turkey has been a fierce critic of the Egyptian regime that ousted Morsi, and has blasted the regime's trial of Morsi on a host of charges most international observers call politically motivated.

Following Morsi’s sudden death in a courtroom this Monday, Turkish leaders have decried his mistreatment and suggested that his death was no accident.

As for Yildiz, he never took up his posting in Cairo, but he kept his letter of credentials as ambassador as a memento of those dark days.

It was impossible to go to Egypt after the coup, he said, adding: “I wish I had gone a few months earlier and started my service. It saddened me that I was unable to serve in Egypt.”

Yildiz, now a ruling Justice and Development (AK) Party lawmaker, offered his condolences to Morsi’s family and the Egyptian people who elected him.

A leading member of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood group, Morsi won the country’s first free presidential election in 2012.

After only a year in office, he was ousted and imprisoned in a bloody military coup led by Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Egypt's then defense minister and commander of the armed forces, and current president.

*Writing by Erdogan Cagatay Zontur