Egypt State Information Service-Issue 2003

One of the salient features of Egyptian foreign policy is the drive to strengthen independent decision-making, to enhance Egypt's international relations and to invest her time–honoured reputation of honouring her international covenants. These endeavours combined should en-trench past gains and open up new prospects in the future.

2- Acknowledging that Egypt's interest integrates with its Arab and African milieu. Accordingly, Arab solidarity and African cooperation are deemed part and parcel of Egypt's best interest,

5- Endorsing mutual respect between states, adhering to the principles of international law, respecting covenants and conventions and agreements and boosting solidarity between states,

7- Viewing the Arab circle as a main sphere for Egypt's foreign policy with emphasis on foreign activities related to vital spheres represented in relations with the Islamic and African countries,

8- Boosting Egypt's relations with Nile Basin states and considering relations with Sudan as a natural gateway to cooperation through the UNDUGO (1983) and the TICONIL project for running Nile resources (1992), and

9- Activating cooperation with various world countries based on mutual respect and equality. Stemming from these constants, the Egyptian foreign policy has sought to realize the following goals:

4- Adopt the dialogue rather than conflict, call for serious world move to combat terrorism, according to President Mubarak's initiative for convening a conference on terrorism under the UN umbrella, and work for correcting the misconception of associating terrorism with a specific culture or religion,

6- Channel diplomatic moves to serve development purposes, open new markets to Egyptian exports, encourage private sector to shoulder its responsibility and bolster trade relations with the world.

Amidst the major events that took place in the Arab region during 2003, most significant of which was the war against Iraq, Egypt played a pivotal role that stemmed from a deep concern over the interests of the Arab nation especially after the repercussions of the 11 September events which induced some hostile parties to defame Arabs and Muslims.

During 2003, Egypt has sought to protect the Palestinian issue against the negative impact of the Iraqi crisis. The Middle East peace process topped the priorities of Egypt's Arab and International contacts, being the Arab core issue and cause of instability in the region. Egypt led intensive diplomatic support to the Palestinian issue on every international occasion and stepped up efforts to bring about a breakthrough in stagnant negotiations in order to reach a peaceful solution and end violence between Israelis and Palestinians.

Egypt pays substantial attention to its relation with the Islamic world. Accordingly, Egypt played a significant role in the activities of the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) in support of common issues.

In this vein, President Mubarak participated in the Emergency Islamic Summit held in Doha on March 5, which voiced outright denunciation of any military action against Iraq, condemned Israel's belligerent policy, underlined the importance of “Al-Quds” to the Islamic world and backed Palestinian sovereignty on East Jerusalem.

1- Being Egypt's strategic depth, Africa enjoys a primary inter-est of the Egyptian foreign policy, both on the bilateral level or through participation in activities of the African and international organizations and seeking to resolve the continent's issues and defend its interests. Africa is one of the most important spheres of the Egyptian development diplomancy, much counts on what the African market represents as a sphere for activating the foreign economic cooperation.

2- The Egyptian diplomacy has consistently evolved on several pivots over the African continent both through its role in reinforc-ing the continent's stability and peace keeping and through its role in various African groupings in addition to its participation in election monitoring and the role played by the Egyptian Fund for Technical Cooperation with Africa to develop the continent.

Europe figures high in the Egyptian foreign policy priorities due to its leading economic and technological position on the international level. Europe also enjoys geographical proximity and cultural and historical linkages with the region in general and with Egypt in particular since older times when both banks of the Mediterranean flourished.

Egypt has developed strong ties with the US in various political, economic and cultural fields. Chief of these ties are Egypt's advanced position among recipients of US aid, economic partnership and political consultations especially concerning the peace process so as to put an end to the Arab-Israeli conflict.

As regards US investments in the region, Egypt occupies the fourth position after Saudi Arabia, Israel and Algeria. In the field of foreign investments in Egypt, US ranks second, next to the European Union. American aid to Egypt during the fiscal year 2003 reached US Dollar 1.3 billion in military aid and US Dollar 655 million in economic aid.

Egypt occupies an advanced position among beneficiaries of Canadian aid which is provided by Canadian International Development Agency. The last five years have witnessed a noticeable increase in the volume of Canadian investments in Egypt, cofinancing several projects in different production sectors.

In recognition of Egypt's role in current issues, French President, Jacques Chirac extended an invitation to President Mubarak to participate in the G-8 Summit, held in Evian, France on June 1-3, 2003.

On the sidelines of the Summit, President Mubarak held intensive talks in which he expressed Egypt's vision of agriculture development as well as access by products to new markets. The Egyptian side prepared a working paper involving a number of cooperation projects such as establishing information communication networks and joint marketing companies. In his address to the Summit, President Mubarak stated that we are living in a new age of international relations that requires a firm commitment to joint work. President Mubarak stated that the responsibility for en-hancing development efforts rests on the shoulders of developed countries and that the G-8 policies need a new approach to aid developing countries.

Egypt participated in the 13th Non-alignment Movement Summit in Kualalumpur on February 22-25 calling for activating its role and devoting efforts to fulfil the goals of its founders. In his address to the Summit, President Mubarak emphasized that the Palestinian crisis reached its height because of Israel's neglect of international legitimacy, treaties and covenants. The Summit agreed to consider the Israeli incursions into the Palestinian territories as war crimes. The Summit also rejected the principle of launching war against Iraq and called for compliance by Iraq with international legitimacy resolutions.

1- Egypt's foreign activities aim at serving Egypt's political as well as economic interests. This was reflected in Egypt's move through the WTO Ministerial Meetings, held in Tokyo on February 14, 2003, attended by ministers of finance and economy of 25 countries. Moreover, Sharm el-Sheikh hosted the WTO Consulta-tive Meeting attended by 30 ministers of trade on June 21-22. The conference discussed means of coordinating stances before holding the fifth WTO Ministerial Conference, held in Cancum, Mexico in September. Besides, the Conference discussed the already imple-mented resolutions of the ministerial meeting, held in Doha in No-vember 2001, especially those relating to liberalizing trade in agricultural products and services.

2- Egypt participated in the Meetings of the World Economic Forum (WEF), held in Davos, Switzerland during the period January 23-28 under the slogan: “Building Confidence”. In addition, Egypt presented its efforts in the field of structural reform and trade liberalization in the Meeting of the Forum, held in Jordan on June 21, 2003.

1- Egypt has a clear vision on international terrorism. It adopts a firm stance to put an end to terrorism in the Middle East by re-solving the Arab-Israeli conflict and in the world through holding an international conference for combating terrorism, earlier advocated by Mubarak's initiative in his address to European Parliamentary Association in Strasburg in 1986.

2- Since 1990, in all international meetings and conferences, Egypt has called for freeing the Middle East from all weapons of mass destruction in order to achieve security, stability and peace in the region.

3- Regarding Human Rights, the People's Assembly issued a law for establishing the National Council for Human Rights. The Council will be a completely independent body, in terms of forma-tion, budget, financial resources and functioning as defined by the law.

4- Egypt was elected member of the 53-member United Nations Committee on Human Rights. Besides, Egypt effectively participated in all regional and international gatherings concerned with human rights issues.

5- Foreign Ministry, in cooperation with United Nations Developmental Programme (UNDP), implements a comprehensive training programme for protecting and enhancing human rights as well as increasing the awareness of the principles of these rights. During the year 2003, the programme included several training courses for policemen, judiciary staff, prosecutors, and mediamen. The geographical area of the programme was extended to include South Valley governorates.

6- On May 10, Egypt hosted an international symposium on human rights concerning governmental structures and national associations. Besides, the Egyptian Association for Criminal Law held a conference on May 20-21, 2003, during which People's Assembly Speaker stressed on Egypt's positive response to international community as well as her respect for international conventions and observance of freedoms and human rights