Egypt’s Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said Sunday in an official visit to Israel that Israelis and the Palestinians must resume peace talks before their decades-long conflict escalates.
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It teaches about the change that has come over Israel-Egypt relations, including President Al-Sisi ” s important call to advance the peace process with both the Palestinians and Arab countries.
Israel’s Channel 2 on Sunday had also reported that officials on both the Israeli and Egyptian sides are working to plan a summit with Netanyahu and Sisi before year’s end in either Cairo or Sharm -el-Sheikh to organize a regional peace effort.
These statements are made amid a French peace initiative to hold an worldwide conference later this year to restart peace talks between the parties, an initiative which Israel rejects.
Shoukry, who arrived here to discuss an Egyptian initiative to break the deadlock, said his trip was a “continuation of Egypt’s longstanding sense of responsibility” towards peace for itself and all the people of the region.
Al-Shoukry’s meeting with Netanyahu is to be the first visit by an Egyptian foreign minister to the state of Israel since 2007.
“Egypt remains ready to contribute toward achieving this goal”. After the Arab Spring in 2011, in which Mr. Mubarak was deposed, Egypt continued passing messages between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas, but stopped in 2014.
“The world and the Middle East are in turmoil and my policy is to create centers of stability in this unstable and stormy region”, he said at the time.
Following al-Sisi’s call for peace last May, Netanyahu expressed a willingness to engage in peace talks with the Palestinians, Egypt and other Arab countries wishing to take part in the initiative.
After years of domestic upheaval in Egypt following the 2011 “Arab Spring”, Sisi is trying to reestablish the mediating role that former President Hosni Mubarak once played before he was forced to resign, analysts said.
On June 29, Mr Shoukry met Palestinian leaders during a visit to the West Bank city of Ramallah.
But Netanyahu eventually brought the ultranationalist Avigdor Lieberman in as defence minister instead – while seeking to reassure the Egyptian president that this would not be an obstacle to diplomatic negotiations.
At least 200 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire in the same period.
In April, Israel’s deputy chief of staff spoke of an “unprecedented level of cooperation” with Egypt, mainly regarding intelligence.
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Netanyahu said he lawfully received a $40,000 donation from Mimran while he held no office.
