Cairo – Egypt’s president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi is to host a five-nation Arab summit on Tuesday with the Ukraine war-related energy and food crises on the agenda, the government said.
Sisi, Emirati President Mohamed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhemi and the kings of Jordan and Bahrain, Abdullah II and Hamad, respectively, are to hold the summit in El-Alamein, northwest of Cairo on the Mediterranean coast.
The five leaders met Monday, the Egyptian presidency said in a statement, and “exchanged views on ways to strengthen bilateral relations and cooperation” between their countries.
However, a spokesman for the Egyptian presidency said the formal summit would open on Tuesday, after Egyptian media earlier said it would begin on Monday.
According to the official Egyptian daily Al-Ahram, the summit will address the issues of “energy and food security”.
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Jordan also confirmed that the “consultative summit” would take place on Tuesday.
Al-Ahram, citing a diplomatic source, said a dispute pitting Egypt and Sudan against Ethiopia over its mega-dam on the Blue Nile would also be up for discussion.
The massive $4.2 billion Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), set to be the largest hydro-electric scheme in Africa, has been at the centre of a regional dispute ever since Ethiopia broke ground on the project in 2011.
The wars in Yemen, Syria and Libya, and the Israel-Palestinian conflict are also set to be on the agenda.
Among the meeting’s participants, Iraq is the only country not to recognise Israel.
Egypt made peace with Israel in 1979, Jordan signed a peace treaty in 1994, while the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain normalised ties with the Jewish state in 2020.
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Source: AFP
Picture: Getty Images
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