Informed sources have revealed that Egypt opposes the Saudi-Qatari understandings that they recently reached to solve the Gulf crisis. The sources said that Egyptian-Emirati coordination on this rejection was witnessed at the last meeting between Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed, during his recent visit to Cairo.

For his part, the official spokesman for the presidency in Egypt, Bassam Radi, refused to comment on the results of al-Sisi and bin Zayed’s talks on reconciliation, and said only: “No results have been finalised that can be disclosed.” He added that the four countries (Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, and Egypt) have a set of conditions, but Qatar has not yet responded.

The four countries severed their relationship with Qatar and imposed a blockade on it in June 2017, in the worst diplomatic crisis to hit the Arab Gulf states in decades. The three Gulf States and Egypt accused Qatar of supporting terrorism and destabilising the region. These accusations were rejected by Doha, which described them as “unjustified” and “baseless.”