Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi said on Thursday that Egypt had not set up camps for refugees. “We have about five million refugees who are living here and who go around and about just like Egyptians,” Al-Sisi said in a joint press conference in Cairo with visiting German Chancellor Angela Merkel. The president was answering a question by a German journalist about Egypt's willingness to set up camps for refugees spilling over from conflict areas in the Middle East and Africa – who are potential illegal refugees to Europe. Al-Sisi, however, added, “let me not deal much with this matter before we exhaust our discussions there. I don't want to give any reason for any misinterpretations”. Cooperation on limiting the large inflows of illegal migration from south of the Mediterranean was a key objective behind Merkel's visit to Egypt. It is also a top priority for her talks in Tunisia, to follow her visit to Egypt. Al-Sisi and Merkel It was designed to be a top agenda item during talks that she was planning to hold with Algerian President Abdel-Aziz Bouteflika last week which was cancelled on short notice due to what Algeria said was Bouteflika's poor health from what was described as acute bronchitis. In the joint press conference that followed the Al-Sisi-Merkel talks, the two leaders spoke affirmatively about their joint commitment to contain both illegal immigration and terrorism. On the issue of migration, Al-Sisi and Merkel agreed that settling political conflicts around the region, especially in Syria and Libya, was crucial to enhancing stability and consequently reducing the flow of refugees and potential illegal migrants. On Libya, Al-Sisi said that Egypt was committed to working towards a political settlement to the conflict. He insisted that there are key objectives for Egypt in this respect: Secure the territorial integrity of Libya, realise a political deal as exhaustively inclusive as possible and deny terror groups any gains. This, the president added, were essentially the same objectives that Egypt has in mind for Syria “which like Libya, has suffered destruction during the past six years”. Al-Sisi and Merkel also agreed that a key effort on this front would be for a country like Egypt to monitor its borders to prevent the infiltration of illegal migrants through the borders into Egypt or from Egypt to Europe through the Mediterranean coast. Merkel asserted Germany's commitment to provide Egypt with technical support for border monitoring. She said she also discussed with President Al-Sisi matters related to human rights and civil society. Merkel announced that an agreement had finally been reached to help German institutions work in Egypt and to resolve issues related to the activities some of these organisations had in the past. Three Germans, including an Egyptian-German, were found guilty of breaching national security interests during their work with a prominent German NGO in Egypt post the ouster of Hosni Mubarak in 2011. Merkel stressed that she candidly shared with her host views on the inevitable role of “a diverse civil society” to help the cause of development and also to help “combat terrorism”. The president said that Egypt was committed to human rights and was observing constitutional precepts in this respect. However, he added, “there is also a serious issue related to security, and we have to have a balance there.” During the press conference the two leaders also asserted their commitment to consolidate joint economic cooperation. Prior to the conference, Al-Sisi and Merkel attended the inauguration of three mega electricity power plants in Beni Sueif, Borollos and the new administrative capital jointly built by the German electricity giant Siemens in cooperation with both Orascom and El-Swedy on the Egyptian side. It was the first visit by the German chancellor to Egypt since President Al-Sisi took office in July 2014. It is the second summit for the two leaders. Al-Sisi had visited Berlin in the summer of 2015. The visit, both leaders said during their joint press conference, offered an opportunity for a new push in bilateral ties between Egypt and Germany and for joint cooperation on matters of regional interest. Al-Sisi is to join Merkel along with the leaders of the G20 and other African leaders in a joint G20-Africa summit that Germany is planning to host later in the year.
