The meeting between the board of the Egyptian Council for Foreign Affairs and the Egyptian Parliament’s Foreign Relations Committee took place in the Parliament building, on 29th May 2016, Under the title of what Ambassador Mohamed El Oraby, former foreign minister, expressed that the committee is in charge of four main duties, most importantly dealing and coordinating with the other committees of the parliament, which deal with foreign affairs directly or implicitly namely the Arab, African, national security, human rights and tourism committees.
Ambassador Dr. Mounir Zahran emphasized the importance of this meeting, Ambassador Abdel Rouf El Reedy suggested to create a forum in Aswan, which would be called the “Aswan Forum” This forum would follow other internationally recognized forums such as Munich, Davos, Bratislava, and Helsinki. Regarding the participants of this forum, which would be held annually during winter, the representative of Aswan MP Mohamed Selim offered his help in the preparations of this forum. In addition, both he and the president of the committee expressed their enthusiasm to take part in this forum.
Ambassador Mohamed El Oraby, responding to the questions of the council, emphasized that the committee does not disagree with the current foreign policies of the state except for the issues concerning the Egyptians living in Saudi Arabia who have violated the local laws, the Egyptians living there for Hajj without prior permission, as well as the issue of some of the foreign non-governmental organizations, particularly the German NGOs.
Besides, Ambassador Hesham El-Zimaity stressed the fact that the international delegations that visit Egypt prioritize topics concerning human rights, and it is important for the parliament to coordinate with the different specialized committees particularly the committee of foreign affairs and human rights in order to articulate its position towards these topics.
Furthermore, Dr. Hazem Atiat Allah suggested that there would be a joint collaboration between the Foreign Relations Committee and the Committees on Culture and Media, in the light of the importance of the Egyptian cultural dimension to enhance Egypt’s relations with other countries, especially that the Egyptian cultural and civilization heritage have a positive influence on all areas of the Egyptian foreign policy.
