Egypt’s FM Summons Turkish Chargé d’Affairs to Cairo

Egypt daily newspaper said that Egypt’s Foreign Ministry (FM)   summoned on Thursday, the Turkish Chargé d’Affairs to Cairo.

The Egyptian authorities arrested a Turkish cell working under disguise of media activity.

A well-informed source confirmed that the Egyptian Foreign Ministry summoned today the Turkish Chargé d’Affairs to express strong disapproval of the recent statement issued by the Turkish Foreign Ministry on the legal measures taken by Egypt against a Turkish cell in Egypt.

The Egyptian ministry assured that the statement of the Turkish ministry completely ignores the realities of things.

It stressed that the procedures taken by the Egyptian authorities are valid and came in accordance with laws regulating the media sector in Egypt.

The source added that during the interview with the Turkish diplomat,  the Egyptian officials told him that Cairo rejects the campaign of Turkish aggressive statements against Egypt.

They reaffirmed that correspondents of the foreign media outlets based in Egypt must respect laws and regulations and not to circumvent or violate them.

Cairo had attacked the statement issued by the Turkish Foreign Ministry, after the legal measures taken by the Egyptian authorities against the staff of the “Anatolia” agency news in Egypt.

Counselor Ahmed Hafez, the official spokesman for the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said that Egypt rejects   what was mentioned in the statement of the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and  the other Turkish statements about the legal measures taken by the Egyptian authorities in dealing with an illegal Turkish cell  in Egypt

The official spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed in a press statement released on Thursday dawn,  that all the measures had taken by the Egyptian authorities were implemented according to laws and regulations in place to deal with such anomalies and outside the law.

He added that Turkey ranks  157 out of 180 countries in the Freedom of the Press Index for 2019.

The Turkish authorities annulled licenses of nearly 682 journalists during the period from November 2018 to March 2019, according to many relevant reports.