Egypt’s diplomacy has noticeably focused on African affairs during the past month, an unprecedented development in the nine months since President Mohammed Morsi came to power. It represents an exceedingly important turn of events as it relates to two main arteries providing Egypt with life. The first is the Nile river, without which Egypt would not exist, and around the basin of which other countries thrive. The second is the Suez Canal, Egypt’s largest source of national income, itself tightly linked to the Bab el-Mandeb strait and Somalia’s coast.
The intense diplomatic activity in this regard saw Prime Minister Hesham Kandil visit South Sudan, while Morsi visited the north and Foreign Minister Mohammed Kamel Amr went to Somalia to inaugurate the opening of the Egyptian Embassy in Mogadishu following its move there from the Kenyan capital, Nairobi. In parallel, a delegation of Somalia’s Muslim Brotherhood visited the Egyptian Brotherhood’s Supreme Guide Mohammed Badie in Cairo.
