As part of India’s strategy of multi-vectored foreign policy and expanding relations with key Arab nations, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi has been invited as the chief guest at the January 26, 2023 Republic Day Celebration.
This year both countries have celebrated the 75th anniversary of diplomatic relations, and the invitation to El Sisi, who has been the president of his country since 2014 is being seen as India’s plans to deepen relations in the region.
Expert view on the visit
“Productive relations with countries that provide energy or are located along vital waterways (Egypt – Suez Canal) are a second-order positive of a foreign policy aimed at building confidence among the most influential of the Arab states,” US based Daniel Darling, Senior Military Markets Analyst, Europe & Asia/Pacific Rim, Forecast International Inc, tells Financial Express Online.
Significance of the forthcoming visit of Egyptian President
“Confidence-building measures (officer exchanges, joint training exercises, etc.) and deepening military relations provide countries – Egypt and India in this instance – with opportunities to learn from each other, test the capabilities of each other, and possibly, in India’s instance, showcase indigenous hardware that the Egyptians might want to purchase in the future,” he adds.
External Affairs Minister Dr S Jaishankar during his visit to Cairo earlier this year had called on President El-Sisi and had handed a personal message from Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Later Defence Minister Rajnath Singh too had visited Cairo and had met with the President of that country and the focus was on enhancing defence engagement as well as cooperation on different military weapons and platforms.
Financial Express Online had reported earlier that the two sides had also discussed joint training, maintenance and co-production of equipment. Egypt has expressed interest in buying India’s indigenous Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) `Tejas’.
The Air Forces of both the countries have had close cooperation since the sixties era when they were jointly developing a fighter jet. The Indian Air Force (IAF) trained the Egyptian Air Force pilots between 1960s-1984. The Arab nation has also been providing transit facilities to the Indian Navy and IAF aircraft which are ferrying from Europe, the US or Russia.
The Egyptian leader has been to India on an official visit in 2016 and prior to that he was here in October 2015 for the Third India-Africa Forum summit. In 2015 the two leaders had also met on the sidelines of the UNGA.
Geographically the North African nation is among the nine countries who have been invited by India for the G20 summit in September 2023.
The Fourth India-Africa Forum Summit is likely to be scheduled in 2023-24. There is no confirmation related to the dates or the programme from the Ministry of External Affairs on this.
Chief Guests at RD celebrations since 2015
US President Barack Obama (2015); French President Francois Hollande (2016); UAE’s Mohammed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan (2017); ASEAN Leaders (2018); South Africa’s Cyril Ramaphosa (2019); Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro (2020). And due to the global pandemic of COVID 19, there have been no guests for 2021 and 2022.
It has been reported earlier that the then Prime Minister of the UK Boris Johnson was expected to be the chief guest in 2021, however due to COVID crisis that visit was postponed.
Has Egypt ever been a guest at RD?
No. The Arab nation has never been invited as a guest to the Republic Day Celebration.
Trading partner
It has been India’s most important trading partner in the region. In 2019-2020 the volume of trade had declined marginally to about $4.5 billion and in 2020-21 it touched $4.15 billion.
At the recently concluded Parliament Session, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar informed that the Egyptian President has accepted the invitation to be the chief guest at the Republic Day celebrations in India.