Egypt's Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry giving speech during a ceremony to launch a special magazine supplement on Egypt's 2-year membership of the UN Security Council at Al-Ahram headquarters in Cairo, Egypt, May 2, 2018 (Photo: Al-Ahram)
The Egyptian foreign ministry spokesman said on Friday that the foreign minister’s recent statements about the possibility of deploying Arab troops to Syria “did not pertain to Egypt.”
"Egypt does not send troops outside its territory unless it is in accordance with the constitution as well as legal and political mechanisms," read the statement by Ahmed Abu Zeid.
In response to a query by diplomatic reporters following a seminar held at Al-Ahram on Wednesday, Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said that sending Arab troops to Syria was a possibility.
The comments were widely reported by international and Arab media.
"The principles that govern dispatching Egyptian forces outside the country are known to everybody,” Abu Zeid said.
“It will not occur unless it is in line with constitutional mechanisms, and rules and regulations that have been affirmed more than once, such as cases related to United Nations peacekeeping operations.”
During the seminar on Wednesday, which featured a ceremony celebrating the issuing of a special supplement of Al-Ahram's Al-Siyasa Al-Dawliya (International Politics) magazine on the country's UN Security Council membership, Shoukry also said that the two main crises that have been taking up Egypt’s attention are Syria and the Israeli- Palestinian conflict.
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