The visit was announced the day before without fanfare or trumpet: the Egyptian President, Abdel Fattah Al-Sissi, was at the Elysée Palace on Friday July 22. He first spoke with Emmanuel Macron one-on-one, before a lunch extended to their entourages.
Their meeting is the first since the re-election of the Head of State, anxious to tighten ever closer ties with his counterpart, to better weigh in the region. For his part, Mr. Al-Sissi, who arrived from Berlin and Belgrade, is increasing contacts to prepare for COP27, which his country is hosting in November, to fight against global warming.
The visit is part of a series of meetings in Paris with various leaders of the Middle East, since the passage of the Israeli Prime Minister, Yaïr Lapid, on July 5. The Head of State also received, on Monday July 18, the President of the United Arab Emirates, Mohammed Ben Zayed Al Nahyan. He had lunch with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas on Wednesday, a few days after Abbas met with US President Joe Biden in Bethlehem on July 15.
Each time, in the context of the war in Ukraine which has monopolized Europeans for five months, the aim is to address the impact of the conflict, in particular in terms of food and energy. Egypt is thus very dependent on its cereal imports from Ukraine, and could benefit from the unblocking of the Black Sea ports, if the agreement to this effect between Moscow and kyiv, signed on Friday in Istanbul, is well implemented. implemented.
Concern over the fate of Alaa Abdel Fattah
The idea is also to avoid a new escalation in the region, in particular in the event of the failure of the negotiations relating to the Iranian nuclear power, which have stalled for months, Tehran and Washington failing to agree on ultimate blocking points. The head of French diplomacy, Catherine Colonna, warned on this subject that “time was running out” so many Iranians are multiplying “dilatory maneuvers”, at the risk of emptying of its substance the draft compromise on the table since February.
With his Egyptian counterpart, as with Mohammed Ben Zayed, Mr. Macron raised the idea of organising, if possible by the end of the year, a new regional conference on the model of that of Baghdad in August 2021. The meeting allowed Iranian and Saudi representatives to sit at the same table, in an attempt to de-escalate between the two rival powers. “Many leaders in the region have appreciated the format and are ready to do it again”, they say at the Elysée.
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