Sisi will be reportedly be delaying his visit to Washington until after the Arab summit [Getty]
Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi will be visiting Washington only after an emergency Arab summit on Gaza, scheduled in Cairo on 27 February, has concluded, Egyptian sources told The New Arab’s sister site Al-Araby Al-Jadeed.
The delay in the visit would allow Egypt’s reconstruction plan for post-war Gaza to gain support from other Arab States before Sisi meets US President Donald Trump, the sources said.
Earlier this week, reports suggested that Sisi was postponing the visit as long as Trump’s plan to displace Palestinians and for the US to “own” Gaza was on the agenda.
Trump’s comments, in which he suggested he would like to turn Gaza into a “Riviera of the Middle East” have inflamed tensions and made the already fragile ceasefire agreement between Hamas and Israel even more precarious.
Egyptian sources in Washington also said the US Department of Defence had been exerting pressure on Egypt over its rejection of Trump’s plan, Al-Araby Al-Jadeed reported.
Pentagon officials reportedly threatened leaders in Egypt’s military, suggesting they may disrupt military aid and supplies to the Egyptian army, including spare parts and maintenance for various weapons.
During a visit to Washington on Monday, Egypt’s foreign minister, Badr Abdelatty conveyed to members of the US Congress that Egypt had categorically rejected Trump’s plan.
He said that moving forward with such a plan would provoke a major crisis that could threaten the stability of Egypt as a whole.
The issue was also amplified by Egyptian Prime Minister Madbouly, who said in a press conference on Thursday that Gaza was Cairo’s “main concern” at the moment, highlighting again Egypt’s “complete rejection of the displacement of the Palestinian people from their land”.
The emergency Arab summit to be held in Cairo later this month came after Abdelatty called several Arab states “in a bit to thwart the US proposal of displacing the Palestinian people,” Egypt’s foreign ministry announced in a statement earlier this week.
Abdelatty contacted his counterparts in twelve Arab countries, also discussing the ongoing Israeli offensive on the occupied West Bank.
Trump’s plan has received widespread Arab and international rejection over the last week.
The Arab League chief, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, decried the suggested displacement of Palestinians as “unacceptable for the Arab world, which has fought this idea for 100 years”.
“We Arabs are not about to capitulate in any way now,” he added, speaking at the Word Governments Summit in Dubai.
On Wednesday, both Sisi and Jordan’s King Abdullah II stressed the “unity” of their countries’ positions on Gaza, calling for immediate reconstruction “without displacing the Palestinian people from their land”.
The issue has brought the region, often plagued by geopolitical rivalries, together in a rare display of unity.
