In a sign that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan could be pursuing a historic policy shift, Turkish authorities last week ordered Istanbul-based TV channels affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood to immediately stop airing criticism of Egypt, Al- Arabiya News reported.
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The underlying message appears to be clear: Reduce criticism against Egyptian President Abdel Fatah el-Sissi and his regime as much as possible. The three Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated channels began broadcasting from Istanbul between the years 2013-2015 following the fall of former Egyptian president Mohammad Morsi, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, and the rise of el-Sissi's regime in 2014.
Erdogan, who is closely identified with the Muslim Brotherhood movement, helped these media outlets find a home in Turkey to disseminate the movement's propaganda, which is outlawed in Egypt. The Turkish president also helped senior Muslim Brotherhood officials immigrate to Turkey to help them escape persecution.
Now, however, Ankara is signaling to Cairo, and Jerusalem for that matter, that it wants to normalize relations.
Egypt's Minister of Information Osama Heikal said he welcomed news of Turkey's decision to ban the channels, referring to it as "a good initiative."
With that, projects such as the EastMed pipeline, which will likely run in parts of the eastern Mediterranean Sea that Turkey considers its territorial waters, have left it strategically isolated. Hence the orders to El-Sharq TV, Watan TV and Mekameleen channels to halt airing political shows critical of Egypt and to only air non-political shows and series.
Penalties will reportedly be imposed on the channels that defy the order, including permanently closing down the TV stations.
A tweet from El Sharq TV's official account read: "To our dear followers, we apologize [for not airing] tonight's episode of 'The Streets of Egypt." No further clarification was given.
"A new chapter can be opened, a new page can be turned in our relationship with Egypt as well as other Gulf countries to help regional peace and stability," an Erdogan spokesperson told Bloomberg.
"These channels are not watched by the Turkish people, and therefore this is more of a message meant for Cairo," Dr. Hay Eytan Cohen Yanarocak, an expert on contemporary Turkish politics and foreign policy, told Israel Hayom. "Erdogan wants to show el-Sissi that he's serious in his desire to normalize relations between the countries. As a first step, this is what [the Turks] did."
Yanarocak added: "This is the first stage of Erdogan's credibility test, in which he'll not only have to prove he's taking steps against the Muslim Brotherhood in general and against its media outlets in particular but mainly against the establishment Turkish press which almost entirely delegitimizes Egypt. At the same time, Erdogan's conduct in this regard will largely determine trilateral relations with Israel. Egypt will be a test case for gauging whether the Turkish president can stop the methodical attacks against Jerusalem in the establishment Turkish media."
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