Eurasia Press & News
Egypt’s relations with the United States are “unsettled” as the country struggles to redefine its national interests vis-à-vis other countries, the foreign minister said.
The U.S. was a close ally of Hosni Mubarak, Egypt’s longtime authoritarian ruler who was ousted in an uprising in early 2011. America counted on him to keep the peace with Israel and as a bulwark against the rise of Islamic fundamentalists in the Mideast.
Relations were less cozy with the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood, which then rose to power through democratic elections. Then the Brotherhood’s Mohammed Morsi was ousted from the presidency on July 3 for failing to form an inclusive government.
Interim Foreign Minister Nabil Fahmy is now part of a government appointed by Egypt’s interim president, who was installed by Egypt’s powerful military after Morsi’s ouster.
“We have had two revolutions in 2-1/2 years. Egyptians are trying to define their own identity,” Fahmy told The Associated Press in an interview Wednesday in New York, where he is attending the U.N.’s annual meeting of world leaders. “We are looking outwards and trying to determine who our friends are. It’s an emotional process.”
Fahmy, a veteran diplomat who served as Cairo’s ambassador to Washington for nine years previously, said the U.S. is also adapting to a new reality created by Arab Spring uprisings that have swept through Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Syria and Bahrain over the past three years.
“The Americans, like most of the world, to be fair to the Americans, have always been used to dealing with governments in the Arab world, not with people, ” Fahmy said.
He praised President Barack Obama’s speech to the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday, saying his acknowledgement that Morsi did not rule in an inclusive manner was a positive step.
