Maintaining close ties with Riyadh and containing disagreements with Damascus is a lynchpin of Egypt's current regional policy, Dina Ezzat reports Egypt and Saudi Arabia appear determined, at the highest level of executive power, to prevent any serious mutual misunderstanding. The leaders of the two states, according to Egyptian officials, are well aware of the value of their bilateral relationship, not only for mutual interests but also for the wider Arab benefit. "President [Hosni] Mubarak and his brother, King Abdullah [of Saudi Arabia], are always working to bypass any misunderstanding that might occur in a bilateral relationship as multi-layered and deep as the Egyptian-Saudi relation. When it comes to Saudi Arabia and Egypt -- two leading Arab nations with many responsibilities towards the Arab world -- there is no room for deep or prolonged misunderstandings," said a senior Egyptian official. According to this official, all "problems, and there are not many problems, really" could be contained "when the two leaders sit together and discuss matters in their typical candid fashion". This style of direct head of state inter- communication, Egyptian officials argue, is particular to Egyptian-Saudi relations, now being tailored to address the recent case, that inflamed public opinion, of two Egyptian medical doctors who were sentenced in Saudi Arabia -- where they were contracted to work -- to flogging over an indictment of personal and medical misbehaviour. Such direct head of state "quiet diplomacy" is accredited in Egypt for the return of six Egyptian women workers from Saudi Arabia Tuesday after being exempted by Saudi authorities from serving a penalty for alleged legal and professional violations. President Mubarak is scheduled to arrive in Saudi Arabia shortly for talks with King Abdullah. This meeting, which will be largely behind closed doors, will allow for the two heads of state to review a wide range of bilateral and regional issues. The regulation of duties and the rights of Egyptian labour in Saudi Arabia will figure high on the agenda of talks. Estimated at over two million white and blue-collar workers, Egyptian labour in Saudi Arabia is an important source of foreign currency. The file of the "two doctors" will be addressed within this context, Egyptian sources said on condition of anonymity. "This is not about blaming the Saudis or asking them to overlook their penal code [that stipulates various degrees of flogging as punishment for certain crimes and misdemeanours]. This is about trying to find a compromise that could rightly address any wrong-doing that was done on the part of the doctors but that could do so in a way that accommodates certain Egyptian sensitivities in view of the fact that flogging is not part of the Egyptian penal code," said one source. Egyptian and Saudi officials have been discussing options regarding the case, including the possible transfer of the two doctors to Egypt where they could serve a sentence in line with the Egyptian legal system for the charges on which they were convicted. Some sources have indirectly suggested that this deal could be in the offing. "But it is not final yet," as one source said. Meanwhile, Minister of Manpower Aisha Abdel-Hadi removed Tuesday a ban she had earlier placed on Egyptian doctors seeking contracts with private Saudi medical services. This move is widely interpreted as a sign that the "two doctors" case is nearing an end. A demand that was reportedly forwarded by high-level state bodies to non-official publications to suspend criticism of Saudi Arabia over the case is also interpreted in the same manner. The Mubarak-Abdullah meeting is also expected to resolve a "misunderstanding" that occurred late last month when Egyptian Minister of Finance Youssef Boutros Ghali criticised Saudi financial practices and their impact on regional economics. The suspension of criticism in the Saudi press of Ghali over his remarks, sources suggest, was cited by Saudi authorities following "an adequate explanation" that Ghali reportedly gave to the Saudis. Egyptian officials never tire of publicly asserting the significance of economic cooperation with richer Saudi Arabia that grants Egypt generous aid and loans. And Egyptian and Saudi diplomats agree that what Egypt and Saudi Arabia most have to worry about goes far beyond such menial issues to encompass the complexity of the regional problems the Arab world faces. Particularly pressing for Cairo and Riyadh is a quick fix to internal Palestinian discord as well as potential instability in Lebanon ahead of the organisation of legislative elections next spring. Both Cairo and Riyadh blame Damascus, their former tripartite Arab alliance ally, for aggravating each situation through its support for Hamas in Palestine and Hizbullah in Lebanon respectively. Egypt and Saudi Arabia had a serious fall-out with Syria since the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Al-Hariri for what they qualify as a negative intervention by Damascus in Lebanon. Syrian attempts to accommodate the political demands of Egypt and Saudi Arabia in Lebanon have failed to revive the frozen three-way alliance. Most recently, Egypt, whose tension with Syria has been much more contained than that of Saudi Arabia, had an open confrontation with Damascus over what it perceived as unfair statements by Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Al-Moallem that qualified Egyptian mediation among the Palestinian factions as biased against Hamas. However, the diplomatic and media attack on Syria was promptly downsized. "We obviously have crucial disagreements on the issue of internal Palestinian differences but we decided that we are not going to go far in public because our objective is not to get into an all-out confrontation, even if we don't have perfectly smooth relations," commented a senior Egyptian diplomat. According to this diplomat there have been "attempts" over the past year from both the Egyptian and Syrian sides to overcome their differences but success was obstructed by "a marked difference between what the Syrians promise and what they actually do on the ground in terms of regional politics". Particularly disturbing to Cairo is the close political alliance between Damascus and Tehran that Egypt perceives as conflicting with Arab interests while Syria argues that the relation is tailored to balance increasing Israeli and American influence in the region. Egypt is at odds with Iran and, according to senior diplomats, cannot be in alliance with Syria so long as the Syrian- Iranian alliance endures. However, as Egyptian and Syrian officials note, this political difference, profound as it is, has not obstructed cooperation on economic and cultural fronts. Both Damascus and Cairo are convinced that no matter how strained their relations may be they must never hit bottom. More broadly, diplomats and observers acknowledge, the future of Egyptian and Saudi relations with Syria will also turn on the future Middle East policies of the Obama administration. The choice of Hillary Clinton as Obama's secretary of state indicates that in the short run Washington is unlikely to give Syria or Iran an easier time. Nonetheless, the volume of foreign policy recommendations that have been forwarded to Obama by think tank analysts and former US diplomats to the Middle East suggests that it will be sooner rather than later that the US and its regional allies will have to open up to both Iran and Syria. This week a Saban Centre report suggested that both Iran and Syria could be contained if engaged by the US in serious dialogue.
