Iraq Becomes 2nd Arab State to Restore Diplomatic Ties With Egypt

Iraq, one of the architects of the Arab boycott of Egypt eight years ago, formally restored diplomatic relations with Cairo on Friday, becoming the second country to do so in the wake of this week’s Arab summit meeting in Amman, Jordan.

An announcement made simultaneously in Cairo and Baghdad, the Iraqi capital, said the two countries had agreed to restore full relations immediately “out of the belief of developing Arab relations and maintaining national security.”

An exchange of ambassadors is imminent, both sides said.

The announcement had been expected. Arab officials and diplomatic sources said last week that Iraq and at least five other Arab countries planned to formally renew ties with Egypt, either during or after the Arab League summit that ended in the Jordanian capital Wednesday.

Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Taha Yassin Ramadan confirmed this intention Tuesday, telling reporters that Iraq would resume relations with Egypt, its main supplier of arms from the Arab world, “immediately” after the summit.

The Iraqi announcement followed a similar decision Wednesday by the United Arab Emirates, whose foreign minister paid a quick visit to Cairo where he announced that the other Arab countries of the Persian Gulf would soon follow suit. They include Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain and Qatar.

Five-Nation Council

Along with Oman, which never severed relations with Cairo, these five countries on the western coast of the Persian Gulf make up the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).

Spurred by their growing fear of Iran and the need to find an Arab counterweight to Iranian attempts to widen the Iran-Iraq War, the GCC states agreed, in a collective decision taken earlier this year, to resume ties with Egypt, the largest and militarily most powerful country in the Arab world.

However, they were reluctant to implement the decision before the Amman meeting of the 21-nation Arab League, which suspended Egypt’s membership in 1979 after it signed a peace treaty with Israel.

“It was difficult for some countries to follow the Jordanian example,” a senior Egyptian Foreign Ministry official said, referring to Jordan’s decision to defy the Arab consensus and resume ties with Cairo in 1984. “The others needed an alibi, which the Arab League meeting gave them,” he added.

A GCC-led attempt to get the Amman summit to readmit Egypt to the Arab League was strongly resisted by Arab hard-liners, principally Syria and Libya.

But in a compromise whose outlines were worked out before the meeting began, the summit leaders agreed to treat the question of relations with Egypt as “a sovereign matter to be decided by each state in accordance with its constitution and laws.”

In some ways, the Iraqi decision to resume formal relations with Egypt merely acknowledges their existing relationship.

Egypt is Iraq’s largest Arab supplier of arms, and the diplomatic “interest sections” that each country maintains in the other’s capital are considered de facto embassies.

Arab Quid Pro Quo

The same is almost as true for Egypt’s relations with Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the other Arab gulf states, which provide Cairo with increasingly substantial amounts of financial aid in return for assurances of military assistance in the event they become directly threatened by the spread of the seven-year-old Iran-Iraq War.

However, the symbolic importance of reestablishing official ties now is difficult to overestimate, diplomats said.

Not only does it formally end Egypt’s isolation in the Arab world, but it indirectly confirms the evolving Arab consensus that it is Iran--and no longer Israel--that is the greatest threat to the conservative regimes of the Persian Gulf.

This message was underlined by the Iraqi move to restore relations with Egypt, because it was at an Arab summit meeting in Baghdad that the decision to ostracize Egypt was taken, diplomats noted. Iraq, they added, played a pivotal role in that decision.

Most important of all, one diplomat added, the resumption of ties with Cairo sends a “strong message” to Tehran that “if push comes to shove, Egypt will be there to help” Saudi Arabia and Kuwait defend themselves.

Although officials say reports that Cairo has sent combat pilots to Kuwait are “wildly exaggerated,” Egypt has a number of military advisers in Iraq, and it has repeatedly declared its readiness to come to Kuwait’s defense if it is attacked.