The Russian foreign and defence ministers will travel to Egypt next week on a visit seen as signalling a growing rapprochement between the two countries as the military-backed authorities in Cairo reach out for new allies and seek to lessen dependence on Washington.
A Russian official spokesman said that Sergei Lavrov, the foreign minister, and Sergei Shoigu, the defence minister, would discuss issues touching on “military and technical co-operation” – seen as a Russian euphemism for arms sales.
Cairo’s relations with Washington, its primary aid donor and military supplier for four decades, have frayed since the coup in July that ousted the Islamist Mohamed Morsi, Egypt’s first elected president.
As tensions with Washington increased over the summer, culminating in a US decision to withhold part of its annual $1.3bn in military aid, Egyptian officials started to hint that their country would seek a realignment in foreign relations.
Nabil Fahmy, the foreign minister, went to Moscow on one of his first trips abroad after the coup. The second of two “popular diplomacy delegations”, made up of intellectuals and public figures, is currently visiting Russia.
“Our government was always very apprehensive about the Muslim Brotherhood and might feel that with Abdel Fattah al-Sisi [the defence minister and de facto leader] in power, Egypt could resume its status as the leading Arab nation and help Russia restore its influence in the Middle East,” said Georgy Mirsky, a Mideast expert at the Institute of World Economy and International Relations at the Russian Academy of Sciences.
Though the US administration has been at pains to avoid labelling the change of leadership in Cairo a coup, criticism in Washington of the ousting of Mr Morsi unleashed in Egypt a torrent of nationalist and anti-US sentiment, amplified by a combative and partisan press. Some in the Egyptian media have gone as far as accusing President Barack Obama of close personal ties with Mr Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood.
Amid the nationalist frenzy and talk of US conspiracies against Egypt, rumours of an imminent visit by President Vladimir Putin – cast almost as a saviour coming to Cairo’s aid – began to circulate in the press and social media soon after the ousting of Mr Morsi.
But Badr Abdel Atty, Egypt’s foreign ministry spokesman, dismissed as “nonsense” any suggestion that Cairo sought “to replace one ally with another”. The strengthening relations with Russia, he said, were an attempt “to provide Egyptian political decision makers with alternatives in the national interest”.
“As far as Russia is concerned, we have had very strong historical relations since the fifties and sixties and we fought with Russian weaponry in the 1973 war [against Israel] ,” said Mr Abdel Atty. “So there is solid ground on which we can build for the future.”
The Soviet Union was a close ally under Gamal Abdel Nasser, the late president still revered by sections of Egyptian public opinion as a nationalist hero for challenging the west and championing anti-colonial causes until his death in 1970.
For those Egyptians who now support General Sisi, the rapprochement with Russia harks back to the days of Nasser, when “our destiny was in our hands” and Egypt was not a US satellite.
“Our government may feel that the time has come to remind the people of Egypt of the glorious days of Nasser, and hope that Gen Sisi will turn into a new Nasser,” said Mr Mirsky.
Observers in Moscow said Russia was eager to build support in the region to ensure that the proposed Geneva II conference aimed at ending the conflict in Syria got off the ground.
Source: The Financial Times
