Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El Sisi will travel to Washington this month for talks with US President Donald Trump on a range of key regional issues, including relations between Egypt and Israel in the aftermath of the war in Gaza, and Ethiopia's Nile dam, sources told The National on Friday.
Mr El Sisi has not been to Washington since Mr Trump began his second term in January. He cancelled a visit to the White House in February after Mr Trump announced his intention to resettle Gaza's residents in Egypt and Jordan and turn the coastal territory into a resort.
Egypt strongly rejected the plan, arguing that it undermined its national security, but relations between Cairo and Washington have improved significantly since then. Mr Trump visited Egypt in November to announce a Gaza peace plan and mark the start of a ceasefire in the Palestinian enclave.
The sources, who were briefed on the preparations for Mr El Sisi's visit, did not give a precise date for the Egyptian leader's trip or its duration. They said a meeting between the Egyptian leader and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, hosted by Mr Trump, was being considered.
US officials did not immediately respond to The National's request for comment.
The Axios news outlet reported earlier this month that the US President was trying to broker a meeting between Mr El Sisi and Mr Netanyahu. The Israeli Prime Minister is due to meet Mr Trump on December 29, during an eight-day visit to the US.
“Contacts between Cairo and Washington are continuing to iron out the visit's agenda,” said one of the sources. “Egyptian officials have travelled to Washington for meetings with Trump administration officials.
“Egypt wants to make sure that agreements, or at least common ground, are found ahead of the visit.”
Mr El Sisi and Mr Netanyahu are not known to have met or spoken since the Gaza war broke out in October 2023. Relations between the two Middle Eastern neighbours, bound by a US-sponsored peace treaty, have become strained amid the conflict.
The sources said Mr El Sisi would discuss with Mr Trump the implementation of the second phase of the US leader's Gaza peace plan and sound him out on the need to introduce “amendments” to the 1979 Egypt-Israel treaty, to reflect what they called recent geopolitical changes.
Cairo is primarily seeking to relax restrictions stipulated in the treaty on the number of service members and type of weapons it can deploy in Zone C – the part of the Sinai Peninsula abutting Israel, the sources said.
They gave no details or explanation as to why Egypt wants these amendments.
Under the treaty's provisions, Egypt is only allowed to deploy border police equipped with firearms in the area. However, Israel allowed Egypt to bring troops and heavy weapons there to fight against an insurgency by Islamist extremists in the 2010s.
Egypt stepped up its military presence in the area after Israel seized the Palestinian side of a strip running the length of Egypt's border with Gaza and the Rafah crossing in May last year. The crossing with Egypt was the only gateway in and out of the territory not controlled by Israel.
Egypt reacted angrily to both moves, increasing the tension between the two nations, which fought four full-fledged wars between 1948 and the end of 1973.
Egypt's latest troop reinforcements in Sinai are widely believed to have taken place without Israel's explicit approval, prompting right-wing politicians and analysts in Israel to warn that Egypt is readying to go to war against Israel.
But Mr El Sisi has issued assurances over the past year that the peace treaty with Israel remains a cornerstone of Egypt's foreign policy and regional stability.
However, the Gaza war and talk about a possible war with Israel have revived criticism in Egypt of the treaty's provisions on the presence of troops in Sinai, with some describing them as compromising the nation's sovereignty over its territory.
Another topic Mr El Sisi is likely to raise with Mr Trump, according to the sources, is Cairo's need for the American leader to persuade Mr Netanyahu to quickly approve a strategic, multibillion-dollar deal under which Israel will provide natural gas to Egypt to liquefy and export.
Media reports have suggested that Mr Netanyahu wanted to announce his ratification of the deal during a meeting with the Egyptian leader, something that he could use as evidence of a return to normality in Israel's relations with Cairo after a period of unprecedented tension.
Separately, Mr El Sisi will ask Mr Trump to become directly involved in resolving Egypt's long-running dispute with Ethiopia over the latter's construction of a massive Nile dam that Cairo sees as a threat to its vital share of the river's water, the sources said.
They said Egypt wants Mr Trump to persuade Ethiopia that the dam should be run jointly by experts from all 11 Nile Basin nations, along with representatives from the African Union. It also wants the US leader's support for a new regional treaty that bars Nile Basin nations from building dams on the river without consulting the others.
Mr Trump's first-term administration mediated in the dispute between Egypt and Ethiopia. A deal was reached but Ethiopia refused to sign at the last moment. Separately, a decade of negotiations between Ethiopia, Egypt and Sudan, another downstream nation, have failed to produce a deal.
