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In the post-second world war era, American-Saudi relations had been a strategic constant in the Arab world. Both the United States and Saudi Arabia had made sure to work in concert and coordinate closely their Arab and regional policies. There had been disagreements, and in some instances, very serious ones, like the ramifications of the …
On 12 October, the two warring Palestinian organisations, Fatah and Hamas, signed an agreement, under the auspices of the Egyptian Intelligence Service, to carry out a major national reconciliation. According to this agreement, Hamas was supposed to hand over local governance in the Gaza Strip to the Palestinian government headed by Rami Hamdallah. The Cairo …
According to a New York Times article, published on Monday 12 March, the White House is expected to wrap up its much-awaited peace plan for the Middle East. The plan would deal with the major questions of borders, security, refugees, and the status of Jerusalem. According to three senior officials in the United States government, …
Leaving behind his mounting legal problems, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu flew to Washington last Saturday to attend the annual policy conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the powerful pro-Israeli lobby in the United States. On his five-day visit, Netanyahu met with President Donald Trump and congressional leaders. The White House meeting …
An Egyptian delegation arrived on Sunday 25 February to Gaza, in an effort to bring closer together Fatah and Hamas. Through an Egyptian mediation effort, the two Palestinian factions had signed an agreement on 12 October 2017 in Cairo, committing themselves to carrying out, in letter and spirit, a previous reconciliation accord reached back in …
The 54th edition of the Munich Security Conference (MSC) of 2018 convened in Germany from 16 February to 18 February. The MSC brought together more than 450 senior decision-makers from around the world, including heads of state, ministers, leading personalities of international and non-governmental organisations, as well as high-ranking representatives of industry, media, academia, and …
United States Secretary of State Rex Tillerson paid an official visit to Cairo, his first since he became America’s top diplomat a year ago, on Monday 12 February. The visit came as a part of a Middle Eastern tour for Tillerson that will also take him to Kuwait, Jordan, Lebanon, and, finally, Turkey. In Kuwait, …
One of the least-talked about questions is the coordination and cooperation between Israel and Russia in dealing with regional developments in the Middle East and how far this cooperation has gone in defending Israel’s security interests, particularly, against an expansionist Iran. With the Syrian government winning the war against terrorism and the armed groups which …
On January 20 2018, Turkish forces invaded Syrian territories in a military operation dubbed Olive Branch. The aim has been to clear Afrin from Kurdish “terrorists”—and Ankara vowed to continue its drive inside Syria to the Iraqi-Syrian borders to the east, to drive out all the Kurds from this vast stretch of territory. In so …
United States Vice President Mike Pence made his first official tour of the Middle East from January 20-22, during which he visited Egypt, Jordan, and Israel. This tour came exactly on the first year anniversary of the administration of President Donald Trump. During the past year, the American president visited the Middle East last May …
The White House announced on 8 January that United States Vice President Mike Pence would be in the Middle East on behalf of President Donald Trump, from 19 to 23 January. Pence will arrive in Egypt on 20 January where he will meet with Egyptian President Abdel Al Fattah Al-Sisi. He will then travel to …
Last Wednesday, I wrote an opinion piece entitled “A Crucial Year” that dealt, primarily, with the next presidential elections in Egypt in the first half of this year. In the coming weeks, when the official presidential campaign begins officially, once the list of the presidential candidates is announced in its final form by the newly-formed …
The first four-year term of Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi will come to an end in the first half of 2018. According to the 2014 Constitution, he is entitled to a second and last term. So far, he has not announced, officially, whether he would run for a second term, but the odds are that …
Next January, seven years will have passed since the old order in the Middle East crumbled. Egypt had been at the forefront of this political order with a pattern of alliances that had shielded it, for better or worse, from threats to its political stability and national security interests. This order had been aligned with …
In the last few days remaining of 2017, Cairo hosted an eminent international leader, Russian President Vladimir Putin. It was his second visit to the Egyptian capital in less than two years. In between, Egypt and the Middle East have witnessed dramatic developments that catapulted Russia to the driver’s seat in shaping the future of …
Arab foreign ministers met, in an emergency meeting at the headquarters of the League of Arab States on Saturday, to discuss how to deal with the American decision to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, a move that was announced by US President Donald Trump on 6 December. The American recognition of Jerusalem as …
November 2017 has seen dramatic developments in the Middle East. For the last few months, indications have been that the region has finally gained the upper hand in its three-year war against the self-styled “Islamic State” (referred to as Daesh or ISIS), after the liberation of both Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria, the …
November 2017 has seen dramatic developments in the Middle East. For the last few months, indications have been that the region has finally gained the upper hand in its three year war against the self-styled “Islamic State” (referred to as Daesh or ISIS) after the liberation of both Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria, …