CAIRO — Morocco has recently joined the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Sudan in normalizing relations with Israel. The agreement to normalize relations between Israel and Morocco, which the White House announced on Dec. 10, sparked the interest of Arab countries in the Middle East, namely Egypt.

President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi was one of the first Arab leaders to support the agreement. Officially commenting on the deal, Sisi tweeted on Dec. 10, “I followed up on the important development represented in the US-sponsored Morocco-Israel normalization agreement with great interest. I value this step since it achieves regional stability and cooperation.”

The Egyptian presidential interest in the agreement between Morocco and Israel came in contrast to the lukewarm Egyptian-Moroccan relations in recent years, which was evident in the lack of bilateral meetings at the diplomatic and official levels, in addition to the repeated postponement of a meeting between Sisi and the Moroccan monarch, King Mohammed VI.

In this context, Egypt's Ambassador to Morocco Ashraf Ibrahim told Al-Monitor, “There may be ups and downs [in Egyptian-Moroccan relations], but there have not been any real crises since the 1970s,” adding, “There is diplomatic coordination [between the two countries] in the regional files, especially the Libyan issue, which is considered a matter of national security for Egypt, in addition to the issue of terrorism and illegal immigration.”