CAIRO: Egypt has stated its support for US President Donald Trump’s concerns regarding Iranian threats to regional security.
In a statement issued on Sunday, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry reiterated “Egypt’s deep concern regarding Iranian policies which lead to the instability of regional states and affect Arab national security as well as Gulf security.”
The ministry added that the security of the Gulf was “an extension of the national security of Egypt.”
The statement came after Trump decided to decertify Iran’s compliance with the nuclear agreement signed between Iran, the US, the UK, China, Germany, France and Russia in 2015. Trump asked the US Treasury Department to impose “harsh sanctions” on the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), whom he accused of supporting regional terrorist groups.
Trump urged Congress and US allies to find a solution, which guarantees stronger conditions in the nuclear agreement with Iran, in order to ensure its sustainability, to prevent Iran from possessing nuclear weapons, and to limit its destabilizing conduct.
Egyptian Foreign Ministry spokesman, Ahmad Abu Zeid, told Arab News that Trump’s announcement contained many factors, which explain Egypt’s concern regarding Iranian policies.
He reiterated how important Egypt feels it is that the Middle East is a nuclear-free zone, and that it remains free from “other weapons of mass destruction.”
He added that Iran should stop meddling in the internal affairs of Arab countries. “All of which would enhance the stability of the Middle East and help achieve sustainable solutions for the current crises,” he said.
“Egypt is worried about constant Iranian threats to the security and stability of some GCC countries, like Kuwait and Bahrain, due to the relations of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards with some groups which seek to undermine the security and stability of those countries,” Mohammad Abbas Nagi, editor-in-chief of Iranian Selections magazine, told Arab News.
Dr. Mu’taz Salamah, director of the Arabian Gulf program at Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies (ACPSS), told Arab News that he notices a “leap” in the Egyptian statement with regards to the country’s traditional commitment to the security of the Gulf.
Egyptian rhetoric had previously not singled any country out, he explained. But the recent statement specifically highlighted negative Iranian interference.
Nagi explained that lifting restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program after 10 years cold expose the region to danger from both Israel and Iran. “Cairo is concerned about reports regarding Iranian attempts to circumvent the nuclear agreement and preserve a secret military side to its nuclear program,” he said.
However, Egypt is not critical of the 2015 agreement, according to Dr. Iman Ragab, regional security expert at ACPSS.
Ragab said Egypt welcomed the nuclear agreement and considered it in the interest of regional stability. The ministry’s statement, he believes, is an attempt to convince Iran to change its policies toward its neighbors.
Dr. Ahmad Youssef, a political science professor at Cairo University, told Arab News that the Arab initiative is an ideal framework for dealing with Iranian threats.
He added that Egyptian-Gulf awareness of these threats is more consistent than America’s shifting policies regarding Iran, and warned that total investment in any US strategy could be risky.
“We cannot control the results of changing American policies, especially when the US adopts a policy which does not conform with Arab interests,” he said. A sudden change in Trump’s position cannot be ruled out, especially considering the opposition he faces not only from Democrats, but from within his own administration, he added.
Nagi, meanwhile, pointed out that the strategy presented in Trump’s speech has not yet translated into procedural steps on the ground, and that process could take a long time.
Before Trump’s address on Friday, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson clarified that Trump’s decertification of Iran’s compliance with the terms of the nuclear agreement would not mean withdrawing from the agreement. Tillerson added that the Trump administration would not ask Congress to re-impose sanctions on Iran, as that would be “tantamount to walking away” from the agreement.
Tillerson said that he discussed with his Iranian counterpart, Javad Zarif, the possibility of reaching a new agreement “alongside the 2015 accord” dealing with the “sunset clause” (the lifting of restrictions on Iran’s nuclear enrichment program after 2025) and the Iranian ballistic missile program.
While he expected the imposition of additional sanctions against the funding structures of the Revolutionary Guard and some of its elements, Tillerson ruled out the possibility of classifying it as a terrorist organization because of specific dangers and complications associated with categorizing any country’s army in that way.
Egypt shares Trump’s concerns about Iran
Egypt shares Trump’s concerns about Iran
Returning Syrian refugees cut global displaced total
- UN believes 1.5m from abroad and 2m internally displaced will be home by the end of 2025
GENEVA: Refugees returning to Syria have cut the global total of displaced people from a record peak at the end of 2024, the UN said on Thursday.
More than 500,000 have returned from abroad and 1.2 million internally displaced people have gone back to their home areas since Bashar Assad was deposed in December. The UN refugee agency estimates 1.5 million from abroad and 2 million internally displaced will return by the end of 2025.
Worldwide, a record 123.2 million were forcibly displaced by last December, but the total had fallen to 122.1 million by the end of April. The main drivers of displacement were conflicts in Sudan, Myanmar and Ukraine.
“We are living in a time of intense volatility ... with modern warfare creating a fragile, harrowing landscape marked by acute human suffering,” UN refugee chief Filippo Grandi said. “We must redouble our efforts to search for peace and find long-lasting solutions for refugees and others forced to flee their homes.”
Syria condemns ‘blatant violation’ of sovereignty after Israeli incursion
- One person killed and 7 captured during the pre-dawn operation in Beit Jin, Interior Ministry says
DAMASCUS: Syria’s Interior Ministry condemned an Israeli incursion in southern Syria, saying Israeli forces killed one person and abducted seven others, calling it a “blatant violation” of the country’s sovereignty.
“We affirm that these repeated provocations constitute a blatant violation of the sovereignty of the Syrian Arab Republic,” the ministry said in a statement, adding that “these practices cannot lead the region to stability and will only result in further tension and turmoil.”
The Israeli military said those detained during the pre-dawn raid on Beit Jin were suspected of planning attacks against Israel, and that weapons also were found in the area.
They were taken back to Israel for questioning, the military said.
One person was killed and seven captured in the operation, Syria’s Interior Ministry said, while the father of the young man killed said he had a history of mental illness.
Since the fall of President Bashar Assad’s government in early December, Israeli forces have moved into several areas in southern Syria and conducted hundreds of airstrikes throughout the country, destroying much of the assets of the Syrian army.
Local broadcaster Syria TV described Thursday’s raid as being carried out by about 100 Israeli troops who stormed Beit Jin, near the border with Lebanon, and called out the names of several people targeted for arrest through loudspeakers.
Syria’s Interior Ministry said such incursions spike tensions in the region.
“Such repeated provocative acts are a flagrant violation of Syria’s sovereignty,” the ministry said in a statement.
Village official Walid Okasha said that Israeli troops had entered the outskirts of Beit Jin in recent months, but that this was the first time they entered the center of the village.
He added that Thursday’s operation came four days after an Israeli drone strike hit a car in the village, inflicting casualties.
“They came targeting specific people,” said Okasha, who denied that Hamas members were in the village.
He said the seven people taken to Israel were all Syrians and that two of them were members of the country’s new security forces.
He said the man who was killed suffered from mental illness.
Ahmad Hammadi identified the victim as his son and told the AP that he had a history of schizophrenia.
He said his son was shot dead in front of his home, and that he had no links to Hamas.
He said two of the captured men were his nephews. Hussein Safadi said his two sons, Ahmad, 32, and Mohammed, 34, were captured, adding that his younger son, who raises goats, had lived in Lebanon for years until recently.
He said his younger son was a member of the armed opposition against Assad and recently joined the security forces of the new authorities. As for why Israeli forces seized his sons, “we don’t know the reasons,” Safadi said.
During a visit to France last month, Syrian President Ahmad Al-Sharaa said that his country is holding indirect talks with Israel to prevent hostilities from getting out of control.
Egypt blocks activists aiming to march to Gaza to draw attention to humanitarian crisis
- Egyptian authorities and activists both said Thursday that people planning to march across the Sinai Peninsula were deported
RABAT: Egypt blocked activists planning to take part in a march to Gaza, halting their attempt to reach the border and challenge Israel’s blockade on humanitarian aid to the Palestinian territory before it could begin.
Egyptian authorities and activists both said Thursday that people planning to march across the Sinai Peninsula were deported.
To draw attention to the humanitarian crisis afflicting people in Gaza, marchers have for months planned to trek about 30 miles (about 50 kilometers) from the city of Arish to Egypt’s border with the enclave on Sunday to “create international moral and media pressure” to open the crossing at Rafah and lift a blockade that has prevented aid from entering.
Saif Abu Keshek, one of the activists organizing the march, said that about 200 activists — mostly Algerians and Moroccans — were detained or deported.
But those arriving to the Cairo International Airport on Thursday afternoon were allowed into Egypt, the Spain-based activist added. Organizers have not received approval from Egyptian authorities for Sunday’s march and were evaluating how to proceed, he said.
An Egyptian official on Thursday said more than three dozen activists, mostly carrying European passports, were deported upon their arrival at the Cairo International Airport in the past two days.
The official said the activists aimed to travel to Northern Sinai “without obtaining required authorizations.” The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief the media.
King Tut gold mask to leave Cairo museum after nearly 100 years
- King Tutankhamun’s treasures to move to new Grand Egyptian Museum near Giza Pyramids
- More than 5,000 artefacts from his tomb will be displayed at the $1-billion megaproject opening next month
CAIRO: After nearly a century in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, King Tutankhamun’s iconic gold mask and remaining treasures are set to move to the new Grand Egyptian Museum near the Giza Pyramids.
Visitors have just days left to see the boy king’s world-famous gold funerary mask before it joins more than 5,000 artefacts from his tomb at the GEM, a $1-billion megaproject opening on July 3.
“Only 26 objects from the Tutankhamun collection, including the golden mask and two coffins, remain here in Tahrir,” said museum director Ali Abdel Halim.
“All are set to be moved soon,” he told AFP, without confirming a specific date for the transfer.
The government has yet to officially announce when or how the last artefacts will be relocated.
Still on display are the innermost gold coffin, a gilded coffin, a gold dagger, cosmetic box, miniature coffins, royal diadem and pectorals.
Tutankhamun’s treasures, registered at the Egyptian Museum on Cairo’s Tahrir square in 1934, have long been its crown jewels.
But the neoclassical building — with faded cases, no climate control and aging infrastructure — now contrasts with the high-tech GEM.
Once open, the GEM is believed to be the largest in the world devoted to a single civilization, housing more than 100,000 artefacts — with over half on public display.
In a dedicated wing, most of King Tut’s treasures will be exhibited together for the first time in history since British archaeologist Howard Carter discovered the young pharaoh’s intact tomb in 1922.
His mummy will remain in its original resting place in Luxor’s Valley of the Kings as it is “a vital part of the archaeological site,” Egyptian officials have said.
A virtual replica, however, will be displayed at the GEM using virtual reality technology.
The Egyptian Museum in Tahrir, long the historic heart of Egyptology, has lost in 2021 other star exhibits: 22 royal mummies including Ramses II and Queen Hatshepsut that were relocated in a widely watched state procession to the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization in Old Cairo.
Still, it is home to around 170,000 artefacts, according to the museum director, including treasures from Yuya and Thuya — Tutankhamun’s ancestors — and items from ancient Tanis, such as the golden funerary mask of King Amenemope.
A total of 32,000 artefacts have already been relocated from storage and display halls at the Tahrir museum to the GEM.
The museum’s director said the space left behind by Tutankhamun’s collection will eventually be filled by a new exhibition “on par with the significance of Tut’s treasures.”
Syria condemns Israeli incursion into Damascus countryside
- Atrack undermines Syria’s efforts to achieve stability and reconstruction, Foreign Ministry said
- Israeli forces entered Beit Jinn in Qatana area killing one civilian and detaining others
LONDON: The Syrian Arab Republic condemned an overnight incursion by Israeli forces into its southern territory, resulting in the death of a civilian and the detention of scores of residents.
“(The) escalation represents a clear violation of international law and relevant Security Council resolutions, including the 1974 Disengagement Agreement,” the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates said in a statement on Thursday.
It added that the attack undermines Syria’s efforts to achieve stability and reconstruction and called on the UN Security Council “to take decisive steps to halt those repeated attacks and ensure respect for international law, in order to preserve regional security and stability.”
Syria’s Ministry of Interior said on Thursday that the Israeli forces killed one civilian and “kidnapped seven others during a raid in the town of Beit Jinn, (in the) Damascus countryside” overnight.
The Israeli forces, comprised of tanks, armored personnel carriers, and infantry vehicles, along with reconnaissance drones, entered Beit Jinn in the Qatana area in the country’s southern territory, 12 km from the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
“These practices cannot lead to stability in the region and will only lead to further tension and unrest,” the Ministry of Interior said.
Israeli forces took the detained Syrians into the territories it controlled following the fall of the Assad regime in December, and their fate remains “unknown,” the ministry added.
