The Annual Conference of the Egyptian Council for Foreign Affairs Egypt and The Arabs in a Changing Middle East
December 19, 2018A panel discussion on the spillovers of President Trump’s decision to withdraw from Syria
January 16, 2019
On January 2nd, 2019, Ambassador Dr. Ezzat Saad, Director of the council, received both the Afghan Ambassador to Cairo and Mr.Kamal Gaballah, the writer at Al-Ahram newspaper and council’s member; for discussing the latest developments on the situation in Afghanistan.
Whereas the Afghan Ambassador affirmed that his country seeks the achievement of stability and security as this will play a role in achieving economic development and prosperity. Particularly that the total state budget was approximately 100 billion Dollars before President Hamid Karzai came to power after President Burhanuddin Rabbani, as the economy have had collapsed, in addition to the complete collapse of the infrastructure and political institutions in the country due to Three decades of war and destruction, but today it is amounting to approximately Three trillion Dollars.
The inner strength of Afghanistan drives the community to prosperity, and if the country could overcome the security problem whether by means of reconciliation, strengthening the army, or through other means, then the doors would be widely opened to the development process.
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At the level of Egyptian-Afghan relations; he demanded that there should be a long-term cooperation project between Egypt and Afghanistan, at least, for the next Ten years, regardless of any political volatility (such as change of Governments, Foreign Minister, or the person of the President of the Republic), thus the Two countries should seek shaping a holistic framework for their relations.
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With respect to the settlement of the Afghan crisis; he emphasized upon the multiple courses undertaken by the international powers (Iran, Russia, the USA, as well as Saudi Arabia, and Qatar) but he affirmed that the multiplicity of such formulae would increase the complexity of the situation, stressing that the settlement process should be carried out through a single channel, namely, the Afghan government, and this requires that the Americans, Russians, and others stand by the Afghans, thus the Afghan government has to be at the forefront and those powers have to support it from the back; and that is what the Afghan President demanded from the US envoy to Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad.
