Turkey's Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu says Turkey's government wants to form an alliance with Egypt, as Egypt emerges from the rule of ousted president Hosni Mubarak and builds what he predicted will be a democracy.
In an interview with "The New York Times" in Ankara, Davutoglu said a Turkish-Egyptian alliance would not be directed against Israel or Iran or any other country.
He said the alliance would be what he called "an axis of democracy" of the two biggest nations in the region, binding together the north to the south and the Black Sea down to the Nile Valley in Sudan.
The Turkish foreign minister also predicted that Turkish investments in Egypt would grow to $5 billion within two years, and that total trade would increase to $5 billion by the end of 2012.
The Turkish foreign minister and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan last week visited Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, three countries where longtime rulers were ousted this year.
compiled from agency reports