CAIRO — Egypt declared acceptance of a Gulf initiative, spearheaded by Saudi Arabia, for reconciliation with Qatar. However, certain signs indicate that the agreement has not gone past its formal appearance. A case in point of this is the new diplomatic crisis that has broken out between Qatar and Egypt as the Qatari ambassador to Cairo canceled his flight from Cairo airport after the Egyptian authorities insisted on searching him personally and asked him to take off his shoes.

Moreover, the Qatar-based Al Jazeera channel continues its standoffish policy against the Egyptian regime led by President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi, describing Sisi as a "putschist" or "usurper." This recently appeared in the channel's coverage of the Muslim Brotherhood’s protests on Nov. 28.

The states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) announced that the Gulf dispute with Qatar was over at the end of a special meeting held in Saudi Arabia on Nov. 16. The council decided to reinstate the ambassadors of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain to Doha, after Qatar vowed not to meddle in the affairs of the member states and to cease media criticism through Qatari channels.

This prompted the custodian of the two holy mosques, King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz of Saudi Arabia, to issue a statement asserting that Riyadh’s reconciliation agreement among the GCC states and Qatar included Egypt.