Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi said that Israel has
collaborated with Egypt in its Sinai operations, stressing that
relations between the two countries have strengthened during his term in
office.
During a televised interview – of which US news channel CBS News
broadcast only excerpts – Al-Sisi said that “the relationship with
Israel is the closest now compared with previous Egyptian
administrations and it includes cooperation in various fields”.
Al-Sisi added that the Egyptian army is cooperating with its Israeli
counterpart “to confront terrorism in the Sinai,” which borders Israel
in Egypt’s northeast.
For four years, the Egyptian army has been waging military operations in
the Sinai. It alleges its aim is to fight terrorist groups, most
notably the “Sinai Province” group which announced its allegiance to
Daesh in late 2014. However, organisations such as Human Rights Watch
(HRW) have claimed that “fighting in Sinai has been marred by widespread
government abuses including secret detentions, extrajudicial
executions, and military trials of civilians”.
On other topics, CBS News’ website said that Al-Sisi had refrained from
answering a question about his responsibility for the dispersal of the
“Rabaa Square” sit-in, saying only that: “There were thousands of
militants in the sit-in for more than 40 days. We have tried by all
peaceful means to disperse them.”
On 14 August 2013, the Egyptian army and police force forcibly dispersed
two pro-Mohamed Morsi sit-ins – Egypt’s first elected civilian
president – in the Nahda square, west of Egyptian capital Cairo, and
Rabaa Square, east of the capital.
The sit-in dispersal resulted in the killing of 632 people, including
eight policemen, according to the National Council for Human Rights in
Egypt (NCHR), while local and international rights organisations said
that the number of victims exceeded 1,000.
When asked about the validity of human rights reports that 60,000
political prisoners had been detained in Egypt, Al-Sisi replied: “I do
not know where they got this number. There are no political prisoners in
Egypt. When there is a minority which tries to impose its extremist
ideology, we have to intervene regardless of their numbers.”
CBS News added that the Egyptian ambassador to Washington, Yasser Reda,
asked the channel not to broadcast the interview, but it confirmed the
full broadcast will go ahead on Sunday.
https://www.geezgo.com/sps/51600
Join Geezgo for free. Use Geezgo's end-to-end encrypted Chat with your Closenets (friends, relatives, colleague etc) in personalized ways.>>
Comments
Post a Comment