Ashraf AboArafe
Ambassador Ahmed Abu Zeid, the official spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, stated that the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sameh Shoukry, met on Tuesday, February 27, with Dr. Hossein Amir Abdollahian, the Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs, on the sidelines of the official visit undertaken by the Foreign Minister to participate in the high-level segment. For the fifty-fifth session of the Human Rights Council and the high-level segment of the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, Switzerland.
The Foreign Ministry spokesman indicated that the meeting touched on the course of bilateral relations between the two countries, within the framework of following up on the directives of His Excellency President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi and President Ibrahim Raisi following their meeting on the sidelines of the joint Arab-Islamic summit in Riyadh last November, which stipulated the importance of joint work towards settling the outstanding issues with the aim of Normalizing relations, based on the principles of mutual respect, good neighbourliness, and non-interference in the internal affairs of countries, in a way that achieves the interests of the Egyptian and Iranian peoples and supports stability and enhances security in their regional surroundings.
During the meeting, all issues and topics related to bilateral relations were discussed, and the agenda items and outcomes of the meeting that brought together the foreign ministers of the two countries were discussed on the sidelines of the seventy-eighth session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, where the two ministers expressed their country’s aspiration to restore the normal course of bilateral relations, in line with the historical legacy. And the civilizational values of the two countries and the centrality of their role in the region. They stressed the importance of this meeting as it represents an important step on this path.
The Foreign Ministry spokesman added that the meeting dealt, in large part, with developments related to the Gaza Strip crisis, the dangerous repercussions of the continued Israeli attacks on the Strip, and the catastrophic humanitarian conditions to which the Palestinian people are exposed. In this context, Mr. Sameh Shoukry was keen to inform his Iranian counterpart of the efforts made by Egypt to try to reach paths of calm that would put an end to the suffering of the Palestinian people and allow aid to arrive in a sustainable manner that meets the needs of the sector.
The two ministers renewed their complete rejection of any plans aimed at displacing Palestinians from their lands and liquidating the Palestinian cause, and they agreed to intensify efforts to push for an immediate ceasefire and work to ensure the sustainability of humanitarian aid to the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip, in line with the relevant Security Council resolutions.
In connection with the ongoing war in Gaza, Minister Sameh Shoukry stressed to his Iranian counterpart that the complexity of the region’s crises casts a shadow over the state of stability for all the peoples of the region, expressing Egypt’s deep concern about the expansion of the conflict in the region, which portends serious consequences for the security and stability of a number of sisterly Arab countries. Minister Shoukry conveyed Egypt’s deep concern over the expansion of military tensions in the southern Red Sea region, which resulted in an unprecedented threat to international shipping traffic in one of its most important corridors, and direct harm to the interests of a large number of countries, including Egypt, which requires the cooperation of all countries in the region. To support stability and peace and eliminate hotbeds of tension and conflicts in that region.
At the end of the meeting, the two ministers affirmed their aspiration towards achieving stability and enhancing security in their regional surroundings, and agreed to maintain the pace of communication between them to pursue dialogue on various topics of interest to the two countries at the bilateral, regional and international levels.
