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Cairo, Tehran to Promote Path to Rapprochement

Shoukry during a conversation with Bagheri Kani in Tehran at the end of May (IRNA)
Shoukry during a conversation with Bagheri Kani in Tehran at the end of May (IRNA)
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Cairo, Tehran to Promote Path to Rapprochement

Shoukry during a conversation with Bagheri Kani in Tehran at the end of May (IRNA)
Shoukry during a conversation with Bagheri Kani in Tehran at the end of May (IRNA)

Cairo and Tehran have lately agreed on “the importance of continuing to develop bilateral relations and addressing outstanding issues.”
During a phone call with Iran’s acting Foreign Minister, Ali Bagheri Kani, on Wednesday, Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry emphasized the need to “work to achieve the interests of the two peoples and support the stability of the region.”
Iran and Egypt severed diplomatic ties in 1979, before relations resumed again 11 years later, but at the level of chargé d'affaires and interest offices. The past months have witnessed meetings between Egyptian and Iranian ministers on several occasions, to discuss the possibility of promoting ties.
In May 2023, the late Iranian President, Ebrahim Raisi, directed the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to take the necessary measures to “strengthen relations with Egypt.”
According to a statement by spokesman of the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs , Ambassador Ahmed Abu Zeid, the two ministers agreed on “the importance of developing bilateral ties in a way that ensures that all outstanding issues are addressed, in preparation for restoring normal relations, based on the principles of mutual respect and good neighborliness, with the aim to achieve the interests of the Egyptian and Iranian peoples and support the stability of the region.”
In remarks to Asharq Al-Awsat, former Egyptian Deputy Foreign Minister for African Affairs, Ambassador Ali Al-Hafni said that both countries have expressed desire to restore normal relations.
“This is something that falls within the interest of Cairo and Tehran and the national security of the two countries,” he noted.
For his part, Egyptian researcher at the Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, Karam Saeed, said that Egypt was open to all countries of the region in a way that serves its interests and regional stability.
The Egyptian Foreign Ministry’s statement, on Wednesday evening, indicated that Shoukry and Bagheri-Kani agreed, during the phone call, to “maintain the pace of consultation on the course of bilateral relations,” in addition to finding ways to resolve the current crisis in the Gaza Strip and confront the related challenges at the regional and international levels.
According to Saeed, the Egyptian-Iranian rapprochement is linked to recent developments, including the repercussions of the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip, the economic conditions and their impact on the countries of the region.

 

 

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Trump Administration Ends Some USAID Contracts Providing Lifesaving Aid across the Middle East

A USAID flag flutters outside, as the USAID building sits closed to employees after a memo was issued advising agency personnel to work remotely, in Washington, DC, US, February 3, 2025. (Reuters)
A USAID flag flutters outside, as the USAID building sits closed to employees after a memo was issued advising agency personnel to work remotely, in Washington, DC, US, February 3, 2025. (Reuters)
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Trump Administration Ends Some USAID Contracts Providing Lifesaving Aid across the Middle East

A USAID flag flutters outside, as the USAID building sits closed to employees after a memo was issued advising agency personnel to work remotely, in Washington, DC, US, February 3, 2025. (Reuters)
A USAID flag flutters outside, as the USAID building sits closed to employees after a memo was issued advising agency personnel to work remotely, in Washington, DC, US, February 3, 2025. (Reuters)

The Trump administration has notified the World Food Program and other partners that it has terminated some of the last remaining lifesaving humanitarian programs across the Middle East, a US official and a UN official told The Associated Press on Monday.

The projects were being canceled “for the convenience of the US Government” at the direction of Jeremy Lewin, a top lieutenant at Trump adviser Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency whom the Trump administration appointed to oversee and finish dismantling the US Agency for International Development, according to letters sent to USAID partners and viewed by the AP.

About 60 letters canceling contracts were sent over the past week, including for major projects with the World Food Program, the world’s largest provider of food aid, a USAID official said. An official with the United Nations in the Middle East said the World Food Program received termination letters for US-funded programs in Lebanon, Jordan and Syria.

Both officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly.

Some of the last remaining US funding for key programs in Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan and the southern African nation of Zimbabwe also was affected, including for those providing food, water, medical care and shelter for people displaced by war, the USAID official said.

The UN official said the groups that would be hit hardest include Syrian refugees in Jordan and Lebanon. Also affected are programs supporting vulnerable Lebanese people and providing irrigation systems inside Syria, a country emerging from a brutal civil war and struggling with poverty and hunger.

In Yemen, another war-divided country that is facing one of the world’s worst humanitarian disasters, the terminated aid apparently includes food that has already arrived in distribution centers, the UN official said.

Aid officials were just learning of many of the cuts Monday and said they were struggling to understand their scope.

Another of the notices, sent Friday, abruptly pulled US funding for a program with strong support in Congress that had sent young Afghan women overseas for schooling amid Taliban prohibitions on women’s education, said an administrator for that project, which is run by Texas A&M University.

The young women would now face return to Afghanistan, where their lives would be in danger, according to that administrator, who was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The Trump administration had pledged to spare those most urgent, lifesaving programs in its cutting of aid and development programs through the State Department and USAID.

The Republican administration already has canceled thousands of USAID contracts as it dismantles USAID, which it accuses of wastefulness and of advancing liberal causes.

The newly terminated contracts were among about 900 surviving programs that Secretary of State Marco Rubio had notified Congress he intended to preserve, the USAID official said.

There was no immediate comment from the State Department.