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| Egypt's Mohamed Morsy and Saudi King Abdullah |
Mohamed
Morsy travels to Saudi Arabia Wednesday on his first official trip abroad as
Egypt’s president amid hopes the visit would consolidate the two countries’
strategic political and economic partnerships and “restore Riyadh’s historic rapport
with Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood.”
During
his state visit, Morsy, a leading figure in the Muslim Brotherhood, will hold talks with King Abdullah and Crown Prince
Salman and also perform the Umrah, the non-mandatory lesser
pilgrimage to Mecca that may be performed at any time of the year.
Saudi Ambassador to Egypt
Ahmed Qattan delivered King Abdullah’s invitation to Morsy last Saturday. Qattan
said the visit would enhance bilateral relations in all domains.
A curtain
raiser on the visit published today in the leading Saudi daily Asharq
Alawsat says bilateral trade between the two states stood at $4.75 billion in 2011 while the value of Saudi investments in Egypt reached some $27 billion.
The Saudi investments are in 779 Egyptian projects, of which 381 are in the
mining and industry sector, 117 in agriculture, 156 in services and 94 in
tourism.
Other revealing figures
show Saudi Arabia hosting 1.7 million Egyptian expatriates (including Morsy’s son
Ahmad, who is a medic based in Ahsaa).
At the same time, some
700,000 Saudis are residing or studying in Egypt, which draws another half a
million Saudi tourists annually.
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| 1936: Abdulaziz receives Banna (Asharq Alawsat) |
In a flashback on Saudi
Arabia’s relations with Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, Asharq
Alawsat publishes a 1936 photo of King Abdulaziz Al Saud receiving
Brotherhood founder Hassan
al-Banna at a Muslim forum in the wake of the latter’s pilgrimage to Mecca.
The paper says when Banna
asked King Abdulaziz if the Muslim Brotherhood could open a branch in Saudi
Arabia, the monarch courteously ducked the question and responded, “We’re all
brothers in Islam.”
Banna, the paper adds,
later wrote in his diary, “Saudi Arabia incarnates the hopes of Islam and
Muslims. It lives by the Quran, the Sunnah and the legacy of the
righteous.”
Asharq Alawsat recognizes
that “Saudi relations with Egypt’s Brotherhood had their ups and downs over the
years but remained close despite the differences.”
A serious dip in relations
between Saudi Arabia and Nasser’s Egypt (presumably over the 1962-1970 North Yemen Civil War)
under King Feisal saw the kingdom open its doors to large numbers of Muslim
Brothers.
Editorially, Egypt’s
leading talk-show host and columnist Imad Adeeb, writing for Asharq Alawsat, says
Morsy’s impending visit to the kingdom conveys five signals:
1. Demise
of the Mubarak regime, which had excellent ties with Saudi Arabia, and the
transition to a “Brotherhood republic” won’t affect the mainstays of the Egyptian-Saudi
partnership, which is based on facts and mutual interests rather than on
specific individuals.
2. Smart
Saudi diplomacy was able to abort Iran’s drive to host Morsy on his first
foreign visit as president before the conference of the
Non-Aligned Movement in Tehran at the end of August.
3. Heal
the diplomatic spat over the Gizawi affair (See my April 26 post, “Saudi
Arabia, Egypt and the suspected drug mule”).
4. Allow
Riyadh to gauge the Egyptian president’s views on three principal issues: (1) The
export or dissemination of (Brotherhood) ideas and experiences abroad (2)
The ruling Brotherhood’s position vis-à-vis Iran and (3) How the president
intends tackling the Hamas, Hezbollah and Israel files.
5. Determine
the size of Saudi financial support Egypt needs to put its economic house in
order, restore confidence in its markets and win back foreign investors.
