US affirms support for Egypt as Blinken visits Cairo on Mideast tour

Special US Secretary of State Antony Blinken visits the American University in Cairo, Egypt, Sunday, Jan. 29, 2023. (AP Photo)
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken visits the American University in Cairo, Egypt, Sunday, Jan. 29, 2023. (AP Photo)
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Updated 29 January 2023

US affirms support for Egypt as Blinken visits Cairo on Mideast tour

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken visits the American University in Cairo, Egypt, Sunday, Jan. 29, 2023. (AP)
  • America still backs two-state solution for Palestine and Israel
  • Secretary of state also heads to Jerusalem, Ramallah as tensions rise

CAIRO: The US has affirmed its support for Egypt’s economic, social and political development, according to a report issued by the Office of the Spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and published it on its website.

This comes amid the visit of US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to Egypt as part of a three-day tour of the Middle East.

The report titled “The US-Egypt Relationship” outlines America’s policies towards various challenges in Africa and the Middle East. The visit takes place as the security situation deteriorates in Israel and Palestine.

Blinken will travel on Monday and Tuesday to Jerusalem and Ramallah after his stop in Cairo.

The report states that the US and Egypt are cooperating closely to de-escalate conflicts and promote sustainable peace, including by supporting UN mediation to hold elections in Libya and to restore a civilian-led democratic transition in Sudan.

Also, the US and Egypt share an “unwavering commitment to a negotiated two-state solution as the only path to a lasting resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and equal measures of security, prosperity, and dignity for Israelis and Palestinians.”

Building on Egypt’s peace with Israel, the US and Egypt are partnering to foster further regional cooperation, including through the Negev Forum process, the report states.

The American government was also engaged with Egypt, as well as Sudan and Ethiopia, to “advance a swift diplomatic resolution of issues over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam that safeguards the interests of the three parties.”

On the economic side, it noted that there remains “a shared commitment between the US and Egypt to enhance bilateral economic cooperation for the mutual benefit of the two peoples, including through expanding trade, increasing private sector investment, and cooperation in clean energy and climate technology.”

According to the report, the US has invested $600 million to digitize Egypt’s telecommunications sector, and Egypt has imported $5.9 billion from the US to construct, expand, and modernize Egyptian infrastructure to meet the needs of a growing population.

The State Department confirmed that the US and Egypt have committed to establishing a Joint Economic Commission that will further enhance cooperation on all economic and commercial issues.

Within the framework of developing relations between the two peoples, the US State Department said that more than 20,000 Egyptians have participated in US government exchange programs, and 450 Egyptians travel to the US annually on professional and academic exchange programs facilitated by the US Embassy in Cairo.

The US and Egypt renewed their Memorandum of Understanding in November 2021, which strengthens protections for Egypt’s cultural patrimony and enables bilateral cooperation to disrupt the trafficking of archeological artifacts and cultural objects, the report states.

On the climate side, the US welcomed Egypt’s ongoing leadership through the COP27 presidency to accelerate global change.

According to the fact sheet, the US is providing $10 million to support the launch of the Cairo Center for Learning and Excellence on Adaptation and Resilience, which will build adaptation capacity across Africa.

The US State Department affirmed that Egypt remains an important partner in combating terrorism, anti-trafficking, and regional security operations that enhance US and Egyptian security.

It added that since 1978, the US has contributed more than $50 billion in military assistance, which has contributed to Egypt’s capabilities to protect and defend its land and maritime borders and to confront an evolving terrorist threat, including in the Sinai Peninsula.

The State Department recalled that the US and Egypt established diplomatic relations in 1922 in a letter addressed by President Warren G. Harding to King Ahmed Fouad.

This “deep partnership has proven its flexibility over the past century in the face of changing circumstances as Egypt seeks to build a stable and prosperous future that advances rights and fundamental freedoms for all citizens.”

It added that the US firmly believes critical partnerships like the US-Egypt relationship are stronger when there is a shared commitment to human rights.

“We maintain an active dialogue that seeks to reinforce tangible steps to promote freedom of expression, end political detention and strengthen the rule of law, and undertake critical judicial reforms, including with respect to pre-trial detention reforms, in line with Egypt’s National Strategy on Human Rights,” the US report states.


Iran’s judiciary chief threatens to prosecute ‘without mercy’ unveiled woman

Updated 7 sec ago

Iran’s judiciary chief threatens to prosecute ‘without mercy’ unveiled woman

Iran’s judiciary chief threatens to prosecute ‘without mercy’ unveiled woman
TEHRAN: Faced with an increasing number of women defying the compulsory dress code, Iran’s judiciary chief has threatened to prosecute “without mercy” women who appear in public unveiled, Iranian media reported on Saturday.
Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei’s warning comes on the heels of an Interior Ministry statement on Thursday that reinforced the government’s mandatory hijab law.
“Unveiling is tantamount to enmity with (our) values,” Ejei was quoted as saying by several news sites. Those “who commit such anomalous acts will be punished” and will be “prosecuted without mercy,” he said, without saying what the punishment entails.
Ejei, Iran’s chief justice, said law enforcement officers were “obliged to refer obvious crimes and any kind of abnormality that is against the religious law and occurs in public to judicial authorities”.
A growing number of Iranian women have been ditching their veils since the death of a 22-year-old Kurdish woman in the custody of the morality police last September. Mahsa Amini had been detained for allegedly violating the hijab rule.
Government forces violently put down months of nationwide revolt unleashed by her death.
Still, risking arrest for defying the obligatory dress code, women are widely seen unveiled in malls, restaurants, shops and streets around the country. Videos of unveiled women resisting the morality police have flooded social media.
Under Iran’s Islamic Sharia law, imposed after the 1979 revolution, women are obliged to cover their hair and wear long, loose-fitting clothes to disguise their figures. Violators have faced public rebuke, fines or arrest.
Describing the veil as “one of the civilizational foundations of the Iranian nation” and “one of the practical principles of the Islamic Republic,” the Interior Ministry statement on Thursday said there would be no “retreat or tolerance” on the issue.
It urged ordinary citizens to confront unveiled women. Such directives have in past decades emboldened hard-liners to attack women without impunity.

Israeli police say killed man who grabbed gun, shot at them

Israeli police say killed man who grabbed gun, shot at them
Updated 01 April 2023

Israeli police say killed man who grabbed gun, shot at them

Israeli police say killed man who grabbed gun, shot at them
  • Passers-by reported hearing gunfire
  • The attack occurred hours after thousands of Palestinians had packed the Al-Aqsa mosque compound

JERUSALEM: Israeli police said Saturday they shot dead an Arab Israeli who grabbed a gun from an officer and fired it in a scuffle in the Old City of Jerusalem.
Police said the attack took place around midnight near the Chain Gate, an access point to the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem.
Officers stopped a suspect and, as he was being questioned, “the terrorist suddenly attacked one of the policemen,” grabbing his gun “and managing to fire it,” a statement said.
“In a swift response of the officers who were in danger and struggling with the terrorist, they shot him,” the statement said, adding medics later pronounced him dead.
The suspect was identified as a resident of Hura, a Bedouin village in southern Israel.
Passers-by reported hearing gunfire, and an AFP photographer saw scores of Israeli police deployed in the Old City at around 1:00 am (2200 GMT Friday).
The attack occurred hours after thousands of Palestinians had packed the Al-Aqsa mosque compound on the second Friday of Ramadan for peaceful prayers.
Israeli police said more than 100,000 faithful had gathered to pray at Islam’s third holiest site, built on what Jews call the Temple Mount, Judaism’s holiest site.
More than 2,000 police officers had been deployed throughout the city.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict had seen an upsurge of violence since the beginning of the year, raising fears of a flare-up during Ramadan.
But the past 10 days since the start of the holy fasting month have seen a relative lull in violence.


US seeks to keep Yemen-bound ammunition seized from Iran

US seeks to keep Yemen-bound ammunition seized from Iran
Updated 01 April 2023

US seeks to keep Yemen-bound ammunition seized from Iran

US seeks to keep Yemen-bound ammunition seized from Iran

WASHINGTON: The United States is seeking to keep more than 1 million rounds of ammunition the US Navy seized in December as it was in transit from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to militants in Yemen, the Justice Department said on Friday.
“The United States disrupted a major operation by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to smuggle weapons of war into the hands of a militant group in Yemen,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement.
“The Justice Department is now seeking the forfeiture of those weapons, including over 1 million rounds of ammunition and thousands of proximity fuses for rocket-propelled grenades.”
US naval forces on Dec. 1 intercepted a fishing trawler smuggling more than 50 tons of ammunition rounds, fuses and propellants for rockets in the Gulf of Oman along a maritime route from Iran to Yemen, the Navy said.
They found more than 1 million rounds of 7.62mm ammunition; 25,000 rounds of 12.7mm ammunition; nearly 7,000 proximity fuses for rockets; and over 2,100 kilograms of propellant used to launch rocket propelled grenades, it said.
The forfeiture action is part of a larger government investigation into an Iranian weapons-smuggling network that supports military action by the Houthi movement in Yemen and the Iranian regime’s campaign of terrorist activities throughout the region, the Justice Department said.
The forfeiture complaint alleges a sophisticated scheme by the IRGC to clandestinely ship weapons to entities that pose grave threats to US national security.


Russia protests about ‘provocative actions’ by US forces in Syria

Russia protests about ‘provocative actions’ by US forces in Syria
Updated 01 April 2023

Russia protests about ‘provocative actions’ by US forces in Syria

Russia protests about ‘provocative actions’ by US forces in Syria

Russia has protested to the American-led coalition against the Daesh militant group about “provocative actions” by US armed forces in Syria, Tass news agency said on Friday.
Tass cited a senior Russian official as saying the incidents had occurred in the northeastern province of Hasakah. The United States has been deploying troops in Syria for almost eight years to combat Daesh.
Hundreds of Daesh fighters are camped in desolate areas where neither the coalition nor the Syrian army exert full control. Russia — which together with Turkiye is carrying out joint patrols in northern Syria — has agreed special zones where the coalition can operate.
But Russian Rear Admiral Oleg Gurinov, head of the Russian Reconciliation Center for Syria, told Tass that US forces had twice been spotted in areas which lay outside the agreed zones.
“Provocative actions on the part of US armed forces units have been noted in Hasakah province ... the Russian side lodged a protest with the coalition,” he said, without giving details of timing.
Last week the US military carried out multiple air strikes in Syria against Iran-aligned groups that it blamed for a drone attack that killed an American contractor at a coalition base in the northeast of the country.
Russia intervened in the Syrian Civil War in 2015, tipping the balance in President Bashar Assad’s favor. Moscow has since expanded its military facilities in the country with a permanent air base and also has a naval base.


Love abounds as Copts join and assist Muslims for iftar in Egypt

Love abounds as Copts join and assist Muslims for iftar in Egypt
Updated 01 April 2023

Love abounds as Copts join and assist Muslims for iftar in Egypt

Love abounds as Copts join and assist Muslims for iftar in Egypt
  • Pope Tawadros II praised for providing food to the poor
  • Hundreds of meals distributed to homes and hospitals

CAIRO: With the advent of Ramadan, several Christian churches and organizations have organized Rahman or Mercy banquets for Muslims at iftar, to foster a spirit of tolerance and unity.

Maya Morsi, president of Egypt’s National Council for Women, praised Pope Tawadros II of Alexandria and Patriarch of the See of St. Mark, for providing food to help the poor, and his supervision of the packing of the cartons that are titled “Love Never Falls.”

Morsi posted on her Facebook account, saying: “Love never falls. Pope Tawadros II helps collect charitable donations for distribution in Ramadan. We are in a bond until doomsday.”

Last week, Pope Tawadros II participated in the preparation of Ramadan food aid as part of the Coptic Orthodox Church’s charity drive, through several programs and institutions affiliated with the Pontifical Office for Projects.

In the city of Luxor, in southern Egypt, a number of Copts set up daily Ramadan iftar tables.

Romani Ramzi Ajaibi, one of the organizers of the iftar project, said 10 years ago he started with a number of his brothers and other relatives to provide food for iftar, a tradition initiated by his father.

Ajaibi told Arab News: “The organization of the banquet confirms that the Coptic and the Muslim are brothers in one homeland. Everyone is currently fasting, with some minor differences between them.”

He explained: “The iftar banquet table contains all meals daily, including meat and poultry, and professional chefs working in hotels are used to prepare it. And more than 500 meals are provided for hospital patients.”

Bishoy Ramzy, another organizer, told Arab News: “There are other meals that are distributed to the poor daily and delivered to their homes by those who are ashamed to go to the iftar banquet table (to take charity).”

Ramzi stressed: “I believe that compassion and cohesion between Muslims and Christians only generate love among all.”

In Alexandria Governorate, in northern Egypt, the Church of the Virgin Mary and Pope Kyrillos VI in the El-Zawaida area, east of Alexandria, distributed 250 bags of Ramadan necessities to the most vulnerable families in the Montazah neighborhood.

Yones Adeeb, pastor of the Catholic Church in Hurghada, a Red Sea Governorate city, also joined Muslims for iftar, taking food to people on the streets. Adeeb participates regularly in Islamic celebrations, including distributing sweets on Prophet Muhammad’s birthday.

Adeeb said: “This year, we prepared Ramadan bags to distribute to the needy, as the blessed month of Ramadan carries spiritual and humanitarian meanings.”

“I always share iftar with our Muslim brothers on the first days of Ramadan.”