Egyptian MP Rejects US Criticism of Cairo’s Dealing with Damascus

Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry and his Syrian counterpart Faisal Mekdad during their press conference in Damascus. (Reuters)
Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry and his Syrian counterpart Faisal Mekdad during their press conference in Damascus. (Reuters)
TT
20

Egyptian MP Rejects US Criticism of Cairo’s Dealing with Damascus

Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry and his Syrian counterpart Faisal Mekdad during their press conference in Damascus. (Reuters)
Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry and his Syrian counterpart Faisal Mekdad during their press conference in Damascus. (Reuters)

Egyptian MP Mustafa Bakri has rejected the criticism made by the US Department of State over Cairo’s dealing with the Syrian regime, against the backdrop of Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry’s solidarity visit to Damascus.

Bakri described the demands by Congress members to impose sanctions on the countries that normalize ties with Syria as “nauseous” and “a blatant intervention in the region’s affairs”.

The MP stressed that no party has the right to impose its agenda on Egypt, saying “Syria is an Arab country and Egypt is the beating heart of the Arab world”.

“Our position on the Assad regime has not changed. Now is not the time for normalization. Now is not the time to upgrade relations with the Assad regime,” according to US State Department spokesperson Ned Price.

“Again, the statement that I saw from the foreign minister spoke to this as a humanitarian gesture. Our position on this has been longstanding. We do not believe that it is the time to upgrade or to normalize relations with the Assad regime," Price said in a press briefing this week.

"The goal of the visit is primarily humanitarian, and to pass on our solidarity," Shoukry told reporters during his visit to Damascus on Monday.

Shoukry did not respond to reporters' questions on the possibility of normalizing ties with Syria.

Following the Feb. 6 quake, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi spoke with Syrian President Bashar Assad. Egypt also dispatched rescue teams to Syria.

Moreover, some Egyptian institutions started gathering donations to support the Syrians.

Egypt's parliament speaker Hanafi Jabali was on a visit to Syria a day before Shoukry visited. “Syria will return to its normal position in the Arab League,” he said at the airport.



UN Human Rights Office: 798 People Killed while Receiving Aid in Gaza

Palestinians carry containers for water at a camp for the displaced in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, Monday, July 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Palestinians carry containers for water at a camp for the displaced in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, Monday, July 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
TT
20

UN Human Rights Office: 798 People Killed while Receiving Aid in Gaza

Palestinians carry containers for water at a camp for the displaced in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, Monday, July 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Palestinians carry containers for water at a camp for the displaced in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, Monday, July 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

The UN human rights office said on Friday that it had recorded at least 798 killings both at aid points run by the US- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) and near humanitarian convoys run by other relief groups, including the UN.

The GHF uses private US security and logistics companies to get supplies into Gaza, largely bypassing a UN-led system that Israel says had let militants divert aid.

The United Nations has called the plan "inherently unsafe" and a violation of humanitarian impartiality rules.

"Up until the seventh of July, we've recorded now 798 killings, including 615 in the vicinity of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation sites, and 183 presumably on the route of aid convoys," OHCHR spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani told reporters in Geneva, according to Reuters.

The GHF began distributing food packages in Gaza at the end of May and has repeatedly denied that incidents had occurred at its sites.