Musings From Abroad

Blinken to address Gaza ceasefire and bilateral relations in Egypt

Published

4 weeks ago

September 18, 2024

Concerned about rising tensions in the Middle East, United States Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, is scheduled to visit Cairo on Wednesday.

During his visit, he intends to further efforts to establish a truce in Gaza and fortify relations with Egypt, according to his spokesperson. The visit by the senior US diplomat occurs at a time when the area is still on high alert because of the possibility that the Gaza War could spread, especially after Hezbollah, a militant organisation, threatened to avenge Israel after accusing it of detonating pagers around Lebanon on Tuesday.

Regarding the explosions, Israel has not answered enquiries. Nearly 3,000 people were injured, and at least nine people lost their lives.

At a routine briefing, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller stated that while it was too soon to determine how the events in Lebanon might impact the Gaza ceasefire negotiations, diplomacy was thought to be the most effective means of easing tensions.

Before meeting with Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty and other officials on Wednesday morning, Blinken met with President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi of Egypt at Al-Ittihadiya Palace in Cairo.

How we achieve a plan that we think would get support from both parties” to an Israel-Hamas truce was “squarely on the table” in Blinken’s conversations with Egyptian officials, Miller added.

For weeks, American authorities have stated that a fresh plan for a settlement that would see the release of hostages that Hamas had kidnapped from Israel on October 7, 2023, would be made available soon.

“There are some issues that we need to engage with the government of Egypt on as it relates to this ceasefire proposal that we are trying to bring to fruition,” Miller said.
According to a State Department official, Blinken will travel from Cairo to Paris on Thursday to meet with the foreign ministers of France, Italy, and Britain. During the meeting, they will talk about the Middle East, Ukraine, and other topics. According to the official, Blinken will also meet French President Emmanuel Macron.

This is the first time Blinken has skipped a stop in Washington’s closest regional ally, Israel since the Palestinian militant group Hamas started the Gaza War almost a year ago. Blinken will not be visiting Israel during this trip.

Miller explained that this was because Washington’s goal for this trip was to talk to Egypt about bilateral matters, and the proposal for a Gaza truce that the United States and its mediators have been working on was still not ready to be presented to Israel.

“So it would be premature to be presenting such a proposal, or doing any other diplomatic engagements,” he added.

In the crucial diplomatic effort to end the war, Egypt and Qatar have acted as a go-between for Hamas and Israel’s proposals and counterproposals. In an attempt to improve the flow of humanitarian supplies to Gaza’s 2.3 million war-torn citizens, Washington has also relied on Cairo.

In the raid on Israel last year, Palestinian militants claimed 1,200 lives and captured over 250 prisoners, according to Israeli accounts. Gaza claims that over 41,000 people have died as a result of Israel’s retaliatory attack, which has essentially destroyed the territory.

Washington has sent billions of dollars into military aid to Egypt over their decades-long cooperation, even in the face of allegations of serious abuses, including torture and enforced disappearances, under Sisi’s regime. The Egyptian government refutes the charges.

Last week, Blinken lifted human rights requirements on U.S. foreign military assistance to Egypt, allowing the entire $1.3 billion for the first time since President Joe Biden took office, signalling Cairo’s growing prominence.

After promising to prioritise human rights in U.S.-Egypt relations, Seth Binder, director of advocacy for the Middle East Democracy Centre in Washington, stated that the Biden administration has “completely abandoned any pretence that human rights matter to the relationship.”

Related Topics:bilateral relations in Egypt Blinkens Featured

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Musings From Abroad

Uganda signs contract with Yapi Merkezi to develop rail

Published

12 hours ago

October 14, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

The Ugandan government and Turkish construction company, Yapi Merkezi, inked a contract on Monday to build a 272-kilometer (169-mile) stretch of railway, an official from Uganda stated.

Perez Wamburu, the project coordinator for Uganda’s Standard Gauge Railway, stated that the agreement covered the first phase of a 1,700 km electrified train line, costing 2.7 billion euros ($3 billion).

According to Wamburu, work on the project will begin in November.

At the signing event, Bageya Waiswa, the permanent secretary of Uganda’s works ministry, stated that the project will boost trade and lower transportation costs.

He stated that Uganda will finance the project, which will take 48 months to finish once it is underway, using both its own money and loans from export credit institutions.

The rail segment will connect landlocked Uganda to its neighbour’s rail network at the Kenyan border, Malaba, and eventually the Indian Ocean seaport of Mombasa. It will stretch from the capital, Kampala, to this location.

Uganda and China Harbour and Engineering Company Ltd. (CHEC) reached an agreement in 2015 to carry out the project, provided that CHEC assisted in obtaining funding for the railway from the Chinese government.

Uganda ended the deal last year and started negotiations with Yapi Merkezi, which is working on a project identical to this in adjacent Tanzania, after years of failed negotiations.

Musings From Abroad

Russia’s Wagner claims to have recovered bodies of its mercenaries from July deadly attack

Published

4 days ago

October 10, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

The Wagner mercenary outfit from Russia announced that its forces had found the bodies of its mercenaries who were slain in a confrontation with Islamists and Tuareg rebels in July in the Mali desert sandstorm.

An Islamist insurgency that has been raging for years in Mali, where military authorities took control in coups in 2020 and 2021, originated from a Tuareg separatist revolt in the country’s north of the Sahel.

In July, Wagner stated that it suffered significant losses in the conflict, which it fought with the Malian military, but did not provide many specifics.

“An operation was completed to return the bodies of our brothers, who in July 2024 heroically took up the fight with Islamists many times outnumbered,” Wagner said in a rare statement on Telegram late on Tuesday.

The July battle’s defeat highlighted the risks faced by Russian mercenary forces used by military juntas, which are fighting to rein in rebels and potent branches of Al Qaeda and the Islamic State in the parched Sahel of Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger.

The army of Mali announced in a statement that it had also located and removed the soldiers’ bodies from the scene of the July attack.

Wagner stated that the rebel group had recovered the combatants’ bodies, but a spokesman for the group refuted this.

“It’s not true, there are no Wagner bodies there,” Mohamed Elmaouloud Ramadane, a spokesman for a Tuareg organisation known as the Permanent Strategic Framework for Peace, Security and Development, told journalists.

He said on social media on Sunday that shortly after the battle, the rebels removed the Wagner bodies from the area.

The assertions follow a pattern of contradictory statements: last week, the rebels maintained that both of their fighters who were seized in Mali were still alive, but Wagner said that two of them had passed away.

According to Wagner, its fighters had traversed a desolate region “teeming with Azawad militants” close to Tinzaouaten in north Mali.

“The bodies of our fallen brothers will return to the homeland,” Wagner said. “We do not leave our own, and all of them – dead or alive – will be returned home.”