The meeting was held on Thursday 19th April 2018 in cooperation with the Egyptian Pugwash Society. The session was a tribute to late Dr. Mohammed Shaker, a member of the Board and former Chairman of the Board and one of its founders, who passed away in the last hours of the evening of 28 March 2018.
At the beginning, Dr. Mounir Zahran, Chairman of the Board, presented the opening of the memorial ceremony, in which he discussed the distinguished biography of the deceased who was known for his competence and seriousness in performing his responsibilities as a brilliant Egyptian diplomat who is respected and appreciated by not only Egyptians but all Arab and foreign diplomats and politicians. It attests to the legacy of academic, scientific, diplomatic and humanitarian heritage of Dr. Shaker.
He said that he had an in-depth study of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). He participated in Egypt’s delegation to the NPT negotiations in the 1960s, which is a major reference to the NPT and the nuclear nonproliferation regime, which was the subject of his PhD thesis from the Institute for Higher International Studies in Geneva.
Then the attendees were invited to stand up for a minute to mourn the late deceased’s spirit and read the Fatihah, and then invite the audience to speak, Where many of them spoke about the friendly relations that they gathered with the late Dr. Shaker and their memories with him and his generosity and cordiality with all, in addition to his respect and chastity and his keenness on the public interest at all national, regional and international levels. Among the personalities who spoke were:
Ambassador Dr. Abdel-Raouf El-Reedy, Dr. Mostafa El-Feki, Dr. Osama El-Ghazali Harb, Ambassador Dr. Amin Shalaby, Dr. Ali El-Din Hilal (former Minister of Youth and Sports), Ambassador Ahmed Haggag, Dr. Hazim Attiatalla, Dr. Hisham El-Sherif (Former Minister of Local Development), Dr. Anisa Hassouna, Dr. Heidi Ghoneim, Dr. Malak Faraji, Ambassador Mounir Faraj, Georg Stillfried (Ambassador of Austria in Cairo), representative of Magdi Yacoub Foundation, and many more …
In his address to the Council, Ambassador Abdul Raouf Al-Raidi presented a number of proposals for the Council’s attention:
1. Publishing a book about the late “Mohammed Shaker and the issue of proliferation of nuclear weapons”, so that some colleagues from the Council put the main elements dealt with in this book and personalities that can contribute to the knowledge and thought in writing, this book is not only an important work of the Council, but also In honor of the late Dr. Shaker and his well-known experience in the field of nuclear non-proliferation.
2. Aswan Forum
3. Quarterly magazine in the format of the ‘Foreign Affairs’ of the American Council on Foreign Relations.
4. Conducting an evaluation of the work of the Egyptian Council for Foreign Affairs after twenty years of its establishment (2019).
