Egyptian parliamentarians expressed their discontent with what they described as “political manipulation” by the CBS network, of its interview with President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, which was broadcast through “60 minutes” program on Sunday evening.
Prior to broadcasting the interview, the US channel said the Egyptian government requested not to air it.
During the meeting, the interviewer asked Sisi whether the current cooperation between Egypt and Israel was “the deepest and closest”. The president replied: “That is correct. The Air Force sometimes needs to cross to the Israeli side. And that’s why we have a wide range of coordination with the Israelis.”
Former Egyptian foreign minister and member of the House of Representatives Mohammed al-Arabi told Asharq Al-Awsat that the channel exercised “political manipulation to promote the interview and try to attract the attention of a larger sector of viewers. It suggested that it contained what can be embarrassing for Sisi, but the full interview showed that the answers of the Egyptian president were consistent with his previous statements on the same issues in other public appearances or press interviews.”
The controversial interview was held last September on the sidelines of Sisi’s visit to New York to participate in the meetings of the United Nations General Assembly.
In a report on Sunday, the editor-in-chief of the Egyptian daily Al-Dustour, quoted a senior Egyptian official as saying that Egypt has tried to prevent airing the interview and noting that it was not appropriate for the channel to record a dialogue with the president and delay its broadcasting for nearly four months, without proving any convincing reason for the delay.
