Egypt’s foreign minister has met the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, to try to advance a new peace process with the Palestinians.
Sameh Shoukry’s visit to Jerusalem on Sunday, the first Egyptian ministerial visit in nearly a decade, reflects improved relations between the two countries. Egypt’s president, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, has called for parties in Netanyahu’s coalition to unite in favour of a new peace initiative, which he also called for Arab countries to back.
Netanyahu said before his weekly cabinet meeting on Sunday that the visit was important, and added: “It shows the change in relations between Israel and Egypt, including Sisi’s important call to advance the peace process [both] with the Palestinians and with the Arab states.”
Shoukry said during his visit that Egypt remained a “steadfast and unwavering” supporter of a two-state solution.
The Arab League has long promoted a Palestinian state on Israel’s 1967 borders and based on the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem. But while claiming to be in favour of the “general idea” of the Arab peace initiative, Netanyahu has made clear he would not accept it in its present form.
Tony Blair, who has been in active contact with Sisi, was recently involved in talks to bring Israel’s Zionist Union (formerly Labour) party leader, Isaac Herzog, into talks with Netanyahu to promote the Sisi push for negotiations.
But Netanyahu eventually brought in the ultranationalist Avigdor Lieberman as defence minister instead, while seeking to reassure the Egyptian president that this would not be an obstacle to diplomatic negotiations.
