MBZ Meets Sisi to thwart Gulf Reconciliation and Support Hafter
The Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, the de facto ruler of the UAE, Mohammed bin Zayed, is holding talks today in Egypt with President Sisi to coordinate shaping their positions on regional issues.
Emirates Leaks learned from informed sources that bin Zayed aims to win Cairo’s position in thwarting efforts to achieve Gulf reconciliation and reject Saudi efforts to end the crisis with Qatar.
The sources stated that bin Zayed intends to provide economic incentives to the Sisi regime to ensure that it stands by Abu Dhabi in the face of the Saudi position seeking to resolve the Gulf crisis.
Western reports highlighted the significant obstacles that the UAE puts in the way of resolving the Gulf crisis and that the leaders of Abu Dhabi played and still plays a pivotal role in obstructing progress in reconciliation.
“The negotiations taking place within the Quartet, especially between Saudi Arabia and the UAE, are likely to be much more difficult than direct talks between Saudi and Qatari officials,” said Christian Ulrichsen, a researcher on Middle East issues at Rice University in the USA.
On the other hand, bin Zayed seeks to strengthen coordination with the Sisi regime on intensifying support for Abu Dhabi’s ally in Libya, the war criminal Khalifa Haftar, as part of his campaign against the internationally recognized Government of the National Accord.
Bin Zayed wants a more effective Egyptian role in facilitating the supply of weapons and military equipment to Haftar’s militia and the continuation of Cairo’s supportive position in facing the reconciliation government.
Al-Sisi recently visited France to meet President Emmanuel Macron, where he discussed with him the future of joint Emirati, Egyptian-French coordination in support of Haftar and the regional role in Libya.
The UAE and its allies have supported the Egyptian regime, Haftar, in his criminal attack on the capital, Tripoli, since the beginning of April of last year, to serve Abu Dhabi’s plots to expand and influence.
The UAE and Egyptian regimes are cooperating in a number of regional files, most notably the fight against political Islam groups, promoting normalization with Israel, and conspiring to liquidate the Palestinian issue.
The UAE supported Sisi in his famous coup against the first elected president in Egypt, Mohamed Morsi, in the summer of 2013. It financed him to strengthen his stay in power, thus devoting a dictatorial military regime to thwart the January 2011 revolution that toppled Hosni Mubarak.
The Emirati regime takes advantage of the Sisi regime’s dependence on it to inject more suspicious money and increase its economic influence in Egypt, in a way that poses a national threat to its people.
