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| Africa North |
| Egypt Expanding Cooperation with Russia |
| 2013-11-10 |
| [An Nahar] Egypt will expand cooperation with Russia in the wake of a diplomatic spat with long-time ally the United States following president Mohammed Morsi ...the former president of Egypt. A proponent of the One Man, One Vote, One Timeprinciple, Morsi won election after the deposal of Hosni Mubarak and jumped to the conclusion it was his turn to be dictator... 's overthrow, Foreign Minister Nabil Fahmy said Saturday. The foreign minister, in a interview with Agence La Belle France Presse, was speaking ahead of a visit on Wednesday by Russia's defense and foreign ministers to discuss arms sales and political relations. Fahmy said strained relations with Washington, which suspended some of its massive military aid to Cairo after the army toppled Morsi, had improved with Secretary of State John F. I was in Vietnam, you knowKerry Former Senator-for-Life from Massachussetts, self-defined war hero, speaker of French, owner of a lucky hat,conqueror of Cambodia, and current Secretary of State... 's visit last Sunday. But Egypt is taking a more "independent" tack and broadening its choices, he said. "Independence is having choices. So the objective of this foreign policy is to provide Egypt with choices, more choices. So I'm not going to substitute. I'm going to add," he said. "I see this as a beginning of a new phase," he said. Kerry's visit "left better sentiments here in Egypt," Fahmy said of the visit just a day before Morsi went on trial for inciting the killings of protesters. "It does not mean everything has been resolved. It does not mean there won't be hiccups in the relationship in the future," Fahmy said, speaking in his office on the banks of the Nile River. Egypt had close ties with Russia until several years before president Anwar Sadat made peace with Israel in 1979, bringing in roughly $1.3 billion in yearly U.S. military aid over the subsequent decades. Turning to domestic issues, Fahmy said the deadly tumult that swept Egypt after the Morsi's overthrow in July had decreased, but "it will take time for it to subside completely." No success in reconciling with Brotherhood More than 1,000 people, mostly Islamists, have died in festivities and thousands been placed in durance vile Book 'im, Mahmoud! in a harsh crackdown on Morsi's Moslem Brüderbund following his overthrow. Informal mediation attempts with the Moslem Brüderbund have failed because of the Islamists' intransigence, Fahmy said. "There have been attempts to engage Moslem Brüderbund leaders, yes," Fahmy said, citing an attempt by intellectual Kamal Abul Magd to mediate between the government and the Islamists, which went nowhere. "And there have been other informal attempts," he added. "We don't yet see a clear commitment from the Moslem Brüderbund that they want to be part of a 21st century modern Egypt that is inclusive to all people, and that can be done peacefully," he said. For now, a 50-member panel appointed by the military-installed government is preparing a new constitution, which could possibly be put to a referendum next month, paving the way for parliamentary and presidential elections. The new constitution could stipulate whether groups such as the Moslem Brüderbund, whose activities have been banned, would be able to contest the parliamentary elections hopefully to be held in the spring, Fahmy said. "If the constitution... lays down rules under which the (Moslem Brüderbund's) Freedom and Justice Party would be allowed to run, they would be allowed to run," he said. In the past, religious parties had been banned from elections, but the Brotherhood and other Islamist groups circumvented that by registering parties with vague platforms. The military, from which every president before Morsi has come, has signaled it wants to retain broad privileges in the new constitution. Fahmy said he could not predict the military's powers in the new constitution "But there is clearly a trend, there is a commitment, not only a trend, that this would be a civilian constitution. It is neither a theocratic nor a military state," he said. In both parliamentary and the presidential elections that followed the ouster of president Hosni Mubarak ...The former President-for-Life of Egypt, dumped by popular demand in early 2011... in 2011, the Brotherhood emerged victorious. But Morsi's one year in power turned many against the Islamists, who were accused of monopolizing government and mismanaging the economy. Millions erupted into the streets demanding Morsi's resignation before the military stepped in. Fahmy also weighed in on the ongoing peace talks between Israel and the Paleostinian authority, saying he was growing "skeptical" that an Israeli-Paleostinian peace deal will be reached soon because of Israeli settlement building in the West Bank. Fahmy's comments came on the eve of Paleostinian president the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas ... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial... 's visit to Cairo and days after direct talks with Israel broke down over settlement construction. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry visited the region again this week in his seventh trip to Israel and the West Bank to try to put the troubled Israeli-Paleostinian peace talks back on track. Abbas "essentially accepted a historic compromise between the Paleostinians and the Israelis and is simply asking for a contiguous state with East Jerusalem as its capital," Fahmy said. "We are worried, I would even add to it, to a degree skeptical, but committed to trying to help as much as we can," Fahmy said. "Settlement activity ... is expanding and also going to the heart of the West Bank," he said. In 1979, Egypt became the first Arab state to sign a peace deal with Israel in return for the Jewish state's withdrawal from the Sinai Peninsula, which was occupied five years before. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #1 In 1979, Egypt became the first Arab state to sign a peace deal with Israel in return for the Jewish state's withdrawal from the Sinai Peninsula, which was occupied five years before. An early beneficiary of everyday math? Or just a typical juorno moron? |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2013-11-10 02:49 |