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Blinken: Egypt and US are fully committed to deepening bilateral relations

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken meets with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi at Al-Ittihadiya presidential palace in Cairo, Egypt, Jan. 30, 2023. (Reuters)
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Updated 30 January 2023
Gobran Mohammed

Blinken: Egypt and US are fully committed to deepening bilateral relations

  • US, Egyptian officials discussed issues related to Israel and Palestine, Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, Libya and Sudan
  • Antony Blinken: Sixty percent of the population in Egypt is, of course, 25 years old or younger. So, this is an incredibly dynamic and youthful place
Updated 30 January 2023
Gobran Mohammed

CAIRO: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken discussed efforts to de-escalate tensions between Israel and Palestine in talks with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi on Monday at Al-Ittihadiya Palace.

The two exchanged views on a number of international and regional issues of common interest, including the latest developments in the Palestinian territories and the joint efforts to contain recent escalating tensions.

The talks took place on the second day of Blinken’s visit to Cairo, part of a larger Middle East tour the US secretary of state is currently undertaking.

A spokesman for the Egyptian president stated that El-Sisi stressed the importance of the strategic partnership between Egypt and the US and expressed hopes to enhance coordination on various political and security matters.

Blinken emphasized that Washington is counting on close coordination with Egypt to restore stability between Palestine and Israel.

President El-Sisi likewise highlighted the importance of working to de-escalate tensions in the region and limit any unilateral measures taken by either party. 

He affirmed Egypt’s desire to reach a just and comprehensive solution that guarantees the rights of the Palestinian people in accordance with international frameworks and in a way that achieves lasting peace and stability.

During the meeting, the issue of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam was also discussed. 

El-Sisi stressed the need to reach a binding legal agreement to fill and operate the dam in a way that achieves common interests and preserves the water rights of all parties, highlighting the importance of the US in playing an effective role in resolving this crisis.

Blinken wrote on his Twitter account: “Important meeting with President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi on the US-Egypt strategic partnership.

“We discussed Egypt’s important role in regional stability, bilateral cooperation, and the importance of progress on human rights,” he added.

Blinken also held talks on Monday with Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs headquarters in Cairo. The two discussed issues related to Palestine, the GERD, Libya and Sudan.

The secretary of state said that the US supports Sudan’s transition to democracy and that the future of the country is dependent on the existence of a government that considers the interests of all segments of the population. Concerning Libya, he stressed the importance of holding elections this year, emphasizing the right of the Libyan people to choose their leadership.

Regarding the GERD, Blinken said: “We have heard from the Egyptian leadership that it is an existential matter for Egypt, and we support any solution that takes into account the interests of all parties.”

As for current tensions between Israel and Palestine, Blinken acknowledged that the present time is characterized by difficulty in light of the recent escalation of violence and said that he wants to hear from all sides during his visit to the West Bank and Israel. 

During a joint press conference with the US secretary of state, Shoukry said the talks that were held “clearly reflected the broad convergence of strategic interests between the two countries and the great consistency in visions on many issues, and also showed the enormous potential for developing strategic partnership in many fields.”

Shoukry praised the friendly relations between Egypt and the US and expressed Egypt’s desire to strengthen the relationship on the basis of mutual respect and shared interests. 

Blinken said that Egypt and the US are fully committed to developing and deepening bilateral relations.

He added: “We have supported a contract worth $600 million to build an underwater communications cable to deliver approved fast communications, and we are also helping Egypt invest in the field of wind and solar energy, and we are trying to move forward in joint economic cooperation in order to build on these relations.”

Blinken affirmed that relations between the two peoples are one of the pillars of the partnership between the US and Egypt.

His remarks came during a meeting with students at the American University in Cairo in Tahrir Square.

Speaking at the campus, Blinken said: “It’s really wonderful to be here in this truly historic institution that has brought Egyptians and Americans together for so many years.”

Blinken acknowledged the importance of the youth in advancing both countries’ common goals and achieving economic empowerment and climate action.

The secretary of state said that he chose Egypt as the start of his tour in the Middle East because of the strategic partnership between the US and Egypt.

He said: “As we’re looking at the partnership between the US and Egypt, the strategic partnership that is of great consequence to the US, we know that going forward (this) partnership ultimately is going to be built and sustained and strengthened by the people here today and the people that you represent. 

“Sixty percent of the population in Egypt is, of course, 25 years old or younger. So, this is an incredibly dynamic and youthful place.  

“It’s important for us not just to engage government to government, as important as that is, but to engage with every sector of society, and again, especially the rising generation of Egyptians because, quite literally, you will be the ones making this country and you will be the ones who are carrying forward the relationship with the US.”

Blinken added: “We want to know what’s on your minds, what you’re thinking about, what you’re concerned about, and how you’re looking at things because, for me, the most important thing is this: Just because we’ve done something one way for the last 50 years doesn’t mean we need to do it the same way for the next 50 years.”

Topics: Egypt United States of America (USA) Antony Blinken Abdel Fattah El-Sisi

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Iraq’s Kurdistan region to hold elections on Nov. 18 — spokesman

Updated 26 March 2023
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Iraq’s Kurdistan region to hold elections on Nov. 18 — spokesman

  • The vote should elect both a parliament and a president for Kurdish regions
Updated 26 March 2023
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SULAIMANIYA: Elections will be held in the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region of northern Iraq on Nov. 18, the regional government spokesman said on Sunday.
Iraqi Kurdistan President Nechirvan Barzani issued a decree on Sunday and approved the date, KRG spokesman Dilshad Shahab told a news conference.
The vote should elect both a parliament and a president for Kurdish regions which have gained self-rule in 1991.

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Tunisia recovers 29 bodies after migrant vessels capsize

Updated 26 March 2023
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Tunisia recovers 29 bodies after migrant vessels capsize

  • Rome has pressured Tunisian authorities to rein in the flow of people
Updated 26 March 2023
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TUNIS: Tunisia’s coast guard said Sunday the bodies of 29 migrants from sub-Saharan African countries had been recovered after three vessels capsized, the latest in a string of such tragedies.
A series of shipwrecks has left dozens of migrants dead and others missing in the country that serves as a key conduit for migrants seeking to reach nearby European shores.
It comes after President Kais Saied made an incendiary speech last month, accusing sub-Saharan Africans of representing a demographic threat and causing a crime wave in Tunisia.
The coast guard said in a statement Sunday that it had “rescued 11 illegal migrants of various African nationalities after their boats sank” off the central eastern coast, citing three separate sinkings.
In one, a Tunisian fishing trawler recovered 19 bodies 58 kilometers (36 miles) off the coast after their boat capsized.
A coast guard patrol off the coastal city of Mahdiya also recovered eight bodies and “rescued” 11 other migrants after their boat sank as it headed toward Italy.
Fishing trawlers in Sfax meanwhile recovered two other bodies.
Black migrants in the country have faced a spike in violence since Saied’s speech and hundreds have been living in the streets for weeks in increasingly desperate conditions.
People fleeing poverty and violence in Sudan’s Darfur region, West Africa and other parts of the continent have for years used Tunisia as a springboard for often perilous attempts to reach safety and better lives in Europe.


The Italian island of Lampedusa is just 150 kilometers (90 miles) off the Tunisian coast, part of the Central Mediterranean route described by the United Nations as the most deadly in the world.
Rome has pressured Tunisian authorities to rein in the flow of people, and has helped beef up the coast guard, which rights groups accuse of violence.
Italy’s hard-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni warned Friday that Tunisia’s “serious financial problems” risked sparking a “migratory wave” toward Europe.
She also confirmed plans for a mission to the North African country involving the Italian and French foreign ministers.
Meloni echoed comments earlier in the week by Josep Borrell, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, who warned Tunisia risks economic collapse that could trigger a new flow of migrants to Europe — fears Tunis has since dismissed.
Since Saied’s speech, hundreds of migrants have been repatriated in flights organized by their embassies, but many say they fear going home and have called on the UN to organize evacuation flights to safe third countries.
Tunisia is in the throes of a long-running socio-economic crisis, with spiralling inflation and persistently high joblessness, and Tunisians themselves make up a large proportion of the migrants traveling to Italian shores.
The heavily indebted North African country is in negotiations with the International Monetary Fund for a $2-billion bailout package, but the talks have been stalled for months and there is no sign a deal is any closer.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned on Wednesday that unless they reach an agreement, “the economy risks falling off the deep end.”

Topics: Tunisia Migrant crisis

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Israeli group asks court to punish Netanyahu over legal plan

Updated 26 March 2023
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Israeli group asks court to punish Netanyahu over legal plan

Updated 26 March 2023
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TEL AVIV: An Israeli good governance group on Sunday asked the country’s Supreme Court to punish Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for allegedly violating a conflict of interest agreement meant to prevent him from dealing with the country’s judiciary while he is on trial for corruption.
The request by the Movement for Quality Government in Israel intensifies a brewing showdown between Netanyahu’s government and the judiciary, which it is trying to overhaul in a contentious plan that has sparked widespread opposition.
The Movement for Quality Government in Israel, a fierce opponent of the overhaul, asked the court to force Netanyahu to obey the law and sanction him either with a fine or prison time for not doing so, saying he was not above the law.
“A prime minister who doesn’t obey the court and the provisions of the law is privileged and an anarchist,” said Eliad Shraga, the head of the group, echoing language used by Netanyahu and his allies against protesting opponents of the overhaul. “The prime minister will be forced to bow his head before the law and comply with the provisions of the law.”
Netanyahu is barred by the country’s attorney general from dealing with his government’s plan to overhaul the judiciary, based on a conflict of interest agreement he is bound to, and which the Supreme Court acknowledged in a ruling over Netanyahu’s fitness to serve while on trial for corruption.
But on Thursday, after parliament passed a law making it harder to remove a sitting prime minister, Netanyahu said he was unshackled by the attorney general’s decision and vowed to wade into the crisis and “mend the rift” in the nation. That declaration prompted the attorney general, Gali Baharav-Miara, to warn that Netanyahu was breaking his conflict of interest agreement by entering the fray.
The fast-paced legal and political developments have catapulted Israel into uncharted territory and to a burgeoning constitutional crisis, said Guy Lurie, a research fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute, a Jerusalem think tank.
“We are at the start of a constitutional crisis in the sense that there is a disagreement over the source of authority and legitimacy of different governing bodies,” he said.
If Netanyahu continues to intervene in the overhaul as he promised, Baharav-Miara could launch an investigation into whether he violated the conflict of interest agreement, which could lead to additional charges against him, Lurie said. He added that the uncertainty of the events made him unsure of how they were likely to unfold.
It is also unclear how the court, which is at the center of the divide surrounding the overhaul, will treat the request to sanction Netanyahu.
Netanyahu is on trial for charges of fraud, breach of trust and accepting bribes in three separate affairs involving wealthy associates and powerful media moguls. He denies wrongdoing and dismisses critics who say he will try to seek an escape route from the charges through the legal overhaul.
The overhaul will give the government control over who becomes a judge and limit judicial review over government decisions and legislation. Netanyahu and his allies say the plan will restore a balance between the judicial and executive branches and rein in what they see as an interventionist court with liberal sympathies.
Critics say the plan upends Israel’s fragile system of checks and balances and pushes Israel down a path toward autocracy.
The government has pledged to pass a key part of the overhaul this week before parliament takes a month recess, but pressure has been building on Netanyahu to suspend the plan.

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Tehran condemns US strikes on Iran-linked groups in Syria

Updated 26 March 2023
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Tehran condemns US strikes on Iran-linked groups in Syria

  • Washington said it launched retaliatory raids after US contractor was killed
  • Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said at least 19 people were killed
Updated 26 March 2023
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TEHRAN: Tehran has condemned US airstrikes on Iran-linked forces in Syria that reportedly killed 19 people, which Washington said it carried out following a deadly drone attack on US forces.
The Iranian foreign ministry late Saturday condemned “the belligerent and terrorist attack of the American army on civilian targets” in the eastern Syrian region of Deir Ezzor.
Washington said it launched the retaliatory raids after a US contractor was killed — and another contractor and five military personnel wounded — by a drone “of Iranian origin” that struck a US-led coalition base in Syria on Thursday.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor has said at least 19 people, most of them Syrian, were killed in the following US strikes launched early Friday morning.
The US strikes triggered further rocket attacks by Iran-backed militias, the Observatory said.
The Syrian government, which is closely allied with Iran, has accused the United States of lying about the targets of its air strikes to justify its “act of aggression.”
The United States has about 900 troops in posts across northeastern Syria to keep pressure on the remnants of the Daesh group and support the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, which control most of the northeast.
US personnel in Syria have frequently been targeted in attacks by militia groups that Washington says are backed by Tehran.
Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani said the US troops’ presence was “illegal” and a “violation of international law and the national sovereignty” of Syria.
In contrast, Kanani said Iranian forces were in Syria at the behest of Damascus.
“The military advisers of the Islamic Republic of Iran are present in Syria at the request of the Syrian government,” he said, adding that they will continue to support Damascus to “help establish peace, stability and lasting security.”

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Israel: 2 soldiers wounded in West Bank drive-by shooting

Updated 26 March 2023
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Israel: 2 soldiers wounded in West Bank drive-by shooting

  • The attack was the third to take place in the Palestinian town of Huwara in less than a month
  • One soldier was seriously wounded and the second was in moderate condition
Updated 26 March 2023
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JERUSALEM: The Israeli military said two soldiers were wounded, one severely, Saturday evening in a drive-by shooting in the occupied West Bank, the latest in months-long violence between Israel and the Palestinians.
The attack was the third to take place in the Palestinian town of Hawara in less than a month. One soldier was seriously wounded and the second was in moderate condition, the military said. A manhunt was launched as forces sealed roads leading to Hawara.
No Palestinian group claimed responsibility for the shooting attack, but Hamas, the militant group ruling the Gaza Strip, praised it.
“The resistance in the West Bank can surprise the occupation every time and the occupation cannot enjoy safety,” Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem said.
Violence has surged in recent months in the West Bank and east Jerusalem amid near-daily Israeli arrest raids in Palestinian-controlled areas and a string of Palestinian attacks.
US-backed regional efforts to defuse tensions have led to the meeting of Israeli and Palestinian officials in Jordan and Egypt respectively, where parties hoped to prevent a further escalation during the holy fasting month of Ramadan.
On Feb. 27, when Israeli and Palestinian officials met in Jordan’s Aqaba, a Palestinian gunman shot and killed two Israelis in Hawara. Another shooting attack in Hawara took place as the parties met again in Egypt’s Sharm el-Sheikh, wounding two Israelis.
Eighty-six Palestinians have been killed by Israeli or settler fire this year, according to an Associated Press tally. Palestinian attacks have killed 15 Israelis in the same period.
Israel says most of those killed have been militants. But stone-throwing youths protesting the incursions and people not involved in the confrontations have also been killed.
Israel captured the West Bank, east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians seek those territories for their future independent state.

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