During November 2023, Ambassador Ayman Mousharafa, ECFA Member, visited the Serbian capital, Belgrade, within the framework of academic cooperation between Egypt and Serbia. He gave a lecture at the Serbian Ministry of Foreign Affairs to diplomats and those interested in Middle East and North African affairs. He also gave two lectures at two Serbian think tanks, in the presence of the Egyptian Ambassador to Belgrade, Bassel Salah. Ambassador Mousharafa reviewed the historical developments of the Palestinian cause since the signing of the Egypt-Israel peace agreement and the successive Egyptian mediations to move the peace process forward based on the Arab Peace Initiative and the relevant United Nations resolutions, as well as the two-state solution, with the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital.
He also reviewed the Egyptian mediation efforts to halt the bloodshed of the Palestinians following the successive Israeli attacks against Gaza and its success in achieving a ceasefire after each attack, as well as the Egyptian efforts aimed at alleviating the suffering and mitigating the effects of the siege on the Palestinian people through the Rafah crossing, in addition to its reconstruction efforts after each attack. He also tackled the developments in the Ethiopian dam crisis and Egypt’s continued negotiations for nearly a decade to reach an agreement with the Ethiopian side on the management of the dam, since the Nile is an international river subject to binding legal agreements that cannot be amended unilaterally, with reference to the ambiguity imposed by the Ethiopian side on the management of the dam and its failure to consider environmental studies and its cross-border impacts on the two downstream countries. He also explained that Egypt depends on the Nile River for 96% of its water needs, and has entered the category of countries with water poverty.
On the other hand, Ambassador Mousharafa addressed the continued fluidity of the situation in Libya and its negative impact on Egyptian national security, with the fragmentation of the government’s ability in Libya to control its borders, explaining the successive Egyptian efforts to find a solution to the Libyan crisis, and Cairo’s hosting of many tribal, political and military events in an attempt to find common ground between them on the basis of which a national reconciliation is launched with a national unity government that would pave the way for presidential and parliamentary elections. He also discussed developments of the situation in Sudan, reviewing the roots of the current crisis and its causes, the importance of Sudan for Egypt and the historical relationship between the two peoples, concluding with a review of the Egyptian diplomacy efforts to mediate among the political factions in Sudan.
