Minister of Foreign Affairs Badr Abdelatty met this week in Cairo with his Somali and Eritrean counterparts as well as with Massad Boulos, senior adviser to the US president for Arab and African affairs, to discuss the challenges the Horn of Africa and Red Sea region are facing.
According to Salah Halima, a former deputy to the foreign minister, this week’s talks are part of a series of visits on the ministerial as well as the presidential level to support the bilateral and trilateral levels of cooperation with Somalia and Eritrea in various fields.
The three countries are members of the Council of Arab and African States Bordering the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, and they are facing threats to their security from Ethiopia, which considers its presence in the Red Sea as an existential matter, and Israel, which has established an illegal presence in the northern Red Sea through the port of Eilat.
“Israel wants to have a similar presence in the south of the Red Sea through Somaliland and also in an illegal way,” Halima told Al-Ahram Weekly.
According to Tarek Fahmi, a political science professor at Cairo University, Egyptian diplomacy is now operating on multiple levels, from presidential diplomacy, reflected in President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi’s visits to several African countries, to ministerial engagement.
The official visits to Cairo this week, Fahmi said, are the latest examples of this approach.
“Egypt is asserting its presence in the face of a range of increasingly assertive regional actors,” Fahmi told the Weekly.
“I am not referring to Ethiopia alone, but also to other parties seeking to expand their influence in the region at the expense of Egypt’s interests. Through its diplomatic engagement, Egypt is addressing every development that poses a threat to its national security with a clear vision and a focus on safeguarding its strategic interests,” he said.
The security and integrity of Somalia was one of the main issues discussed during Abdelatty’s meeting with his Somali counterpart Abdisalam Abdi Ali on Sunday.
The meeting was an opportunity for Egypt to underline anew its condemnation of the self-declared Somaliland region’s opening of an embassy in Occupied Jerusalem as an illegal violation of international law.
Abdelatty described the step as “an illegal and unacceptable step” that flagrantly violates international law and relevant international resolutions. He also reaffirmed Egypt’s commitment to supporting Somalia’s efforts to maintain security and stability, particularly in confronting terrorism and extremism.
“Egypt underscored its full support” for Somalia’s unity, sovereignty, and territorial integrity, as well as the preservation of its national institutions, Foreign Ministry Spokesman Tamim Khalaf stated after the meeting.
He added that Abdelatty had called during the meeting for continued efforts to release eight kidnapped Egyptian sailors as soon as possible and ensure their safety. While the Somali authorities continue search operations for the vessel in which the sailors were present, the kidnappers have asked for a quick payment of the ransom out of fears that the authorities may succeed in releasing the kidnapped sailors.
The eight Egyptians were among the 22-member crew of the Togo-flagged MT Eureka, which was seized by Somali pirates in May after leaving Yemeni waters and taken towards Somalia’s Puntland region.
Although there were reports that the vessel’s owner and the kidnappers had reached an agreement, the ransom and the release have not yet been concluded.
On the bilateral level, Abdelatty and Abdi Ali tackled expanding bilateral cooperation in fields like trade, investment, security, trade, infrastructure, electricity, renewable energy, pharmaceuticals, agricultural processing, and food manufacturing in their meeting.
During Abdelatty’s meeting with his Eritrean counterpart Osman Saleh in Cairo, both men repeated a clear message that the security and governance of the Red Sea are the sole responsibility of its coastal states. By so doing, they closed the door to Addis Ababa’s attempts to secure maritime access via Somaliland in violation of international law.
While both officials discussed the situation in Somalia and Sudan, Egypt’s top diplomat reaffirmed Egypt’s firm stand in supporting the integrity and sovereignty of Eritrea.
They also discussed enhancing the strategic partnership between their countries and the need to build on growing bilateral engagements.
In May, the two countries signed a maritime transport cooperation agreement confirming their shared stand on Red Sea governance during Abdelatty’s visit to Asmara.
The agreement is expected to establish a regular shipping link between the Egyptian and Eritrean Red Sea ports.
During this week’s meeting, Abdelatty called for the activation of the agreement and expressed Cairo’s interest in increasing bilateral trade and expanding the participation of Egyptian private-sector companies in the Eritrean market in sectors like maritime transport, the development and upgrading of Eritrean ports, pharmaceuticals, fisheries, and housing.
The Egyptian position, Fahmi explained, is based on maintaining the unity of Somalia, Eritrea, and other African states and supporting their national institutions.
“It is present and effective and keen to provide these countries with their basic needs, such as training, mutual development and investment needs,” he said.
Abdelatty’s meeting with US Senior Advisor for Arab and African Affairs, Massad Boulos also focused on security in the Horn of Africa as well as on developments in Sudan and Libya and Nile water security. The meeting was held as part of ongoing Egyptian-US consultations on regional issues of mutual concern, a statement by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.
During the talks, Abdelatty described the Horn of Africa as “a direct extension of Egyptian national security”.
He underscored Egypt’s firm stand in supporting state institutions and respecting the sovereignty, unity, and territorial integrity of all the countries in the region.
Like in Egypt’s stand on Somalia and Eritrea, Abdelatty highlighted Egypt’s efforts to support Sudan’s security and stability and preserve its unity, integrity, and national institutions.
The US plan for restoring peace in Sudan, explained Halima, is based on four phases: a three-month truce, followed by six to nine months of comprehensive inter-Sudanese party talks, followed by elections, and then followed by the rebuilding process.
However, he added that the Egyptian initiative aims to ensure that these phases move forward in parallel, especially the fourth phase which is of critical importance to the country.
Abdelatty emphasised during his talks with Boulos that “such a process should preserve Sudan’s unity and meet the aspirations of its people for security, stability, and development.”
The issue of the Nile’s water was also tackled during the meeting. Abdelatty called for abiding with international law governing the use of transboundary water resources in a way that protects the interests of all the Nile Basin countries.
Describing Egypt’s water security as “an existential issue” for the country, he repeated Egypt’s rejection of any unilateral measures in the Nile Basin.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 23 July, 2026 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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