Egypt's El-Sisi offers full support to Iraq's Maliki
Ahram Online, Tuesday 8 Jul 2014
Egypt's president reaches out to Iraqi prime minister, calls for a non-sectarian Iraqi state to defeat "terrorism"


President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi assured Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki that Egypt is willing to give its full support to get Iraq out of its current crisis, Egyptian presidential spokesperson Ehab Badawi told reporters on Tuesday.

In a phone call with Al-Maliki, El-Sisi expressed Egypt's concern regarding recent developments in Iraq that he said are threatening its unity and called for Iraq's national constituencies to align to resolve their problems.

El-Sisi also called for the building of a strong, inclusive state in Iraq that will reject sectarian tendencies in order to be able to face "extremism and terrorism," which he said is threatening national states in the region.

The jihadist group Islamic State – previously known as ISIS – overran Iraq's second city of Mosul last month and now controls large swathes of territory in the country's north.

El-Sisi is fighting an Islamist insurgency at home in the Sinai Peninsula and to a smaller extent in the capital Cairo and the northern Nile Delta region, with at least 500 police and army officers and personnel killed since the ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in July 2013.

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