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Monday, 11 July 2016

Egyptian FM visit to Israel “shows relations changing for better” -Netanyahu

Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry unexpectedly traveled to Israel yesterday to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The visit came as part of a bid by President Abdel Fattah El Sisi to move the regional peace process forward, the foreign ministry said in a statement. Shoukry is the first Egyptian foreign minister to visit Israel in a nearly a decade, reports Reuters, and follows a similar meeting with Palestinian officials in Ramallah on 29 June.

Egyptian diplomacy pushing France aside? The Jerusalem Post’s Herb Keinon argues that the announcement by Shoukry of Egypt’s intention to host direct talks between the Palestinian Authority’s Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Benjamin Netanyahu in Egypt supplants France’s initiative to host an international conference this December. “Itzhak Levanon, who served as Israel’s ambassador to Egypt from 2009 to 2011, said that both the Palestinian Authority and Israel would prefer Cairo’s involvement to that of Paris,” Keinon writes. Shoukry’s visit is “an indication of the positive changes taking place in the Israeli-Egyptian relationship,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told his cabinet, Keinon noted in separate piece.

Meanwhile, Netanyahu’s Arab media spokesperson released these photos showing Shoukry and Netanyahu watching the Euro final at the prime minister’s residence. (Also: Shoukry meets Mrs. Bibi and Bibi and Shoukry do the obligatory march past alternating Egyptian and Israeli flags) Coverage of the visit features prominently in the international press this morning, including front-page placement in the digital edition of the Financial Times.

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