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· Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi recently opened a strategic naval base on the Mediterranean Sea, the latest in the area to “secure shipping lines”.
· The new naval base will be focused on securing the country’s northern and western front.
· The African Union (AU) and France demanded that this period should not exceed 18 months
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi recently opened a strategic naval base on the Mediterranean Sea, the latest in the area to “secure shipping lines”. The new naval base will be focused on securing the country’s northern and western front.
The ceremony was attended by Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, and by the chairman of Libya’s Presidential Council Mohamed al-Menfi. The base lies some 255 kilometres west of Alexandria, closer to the border with Libya. Egypt and the UAE were key backers of Khalifa Hafta, the eastern based leader. The base was named “July 3” after the day eight years ago when Sisi led the military ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi.
Egypt has three other naval bases in the Mediterranean and one in the Red Sea. Egyptian Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouli in April this year travelled to Libya, where he had talks with interim prime minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah, in a new sign of warming ties between Cairo and Tripoli. Incidentally, Dbeibah visited Egypt in February on his first official trip abroad after his election. Egypt has three other naval bases in the Mediterranean and one in the Red Sea.
