Examinationofthe Egypt-Syrian Conflict and Peace by A. O. Eze

Examination of the Egypt-Syrian Conflict and Peace


                                         By

Andrew Oforma Eze







EGYPT

COUNTRY BIODATA
Country Name:
Conventional Long Form: Arab Republic of Egypt
Conventional Short Form: Egypt
Former: United Arab Republic (with Syria)
Capital: Cairo
Continent: Africa
Location: Northeastern Africa (bounded by the Mediterranean Sea on the north; Israel, Gaza
Strip and the Red Sea on the east; Sudan on the south and Libya on the west).
Population: 97,041,072 (July 2017 est.) 14th in the world.
Geographical area (km2): 1,010,408
Current Constitution: 18 January, 2014
Independence: July 23, 1952
Ethnic Groups: Eastern Hamitic stock (Egyptians, Bedouins and Berbers) 99%, Nubians,
Armenians, Greeks and other Europeans, primarily Italian and French 1%
Languages: Arabic, Masir (official), English, French
Religion: Muslim (predominantly Sunni) 90%, Christians (majority Coptic Orthodox, other
Christians include Armenian Apostolic, Catholic Maronite, Orthodox and Anglican 10%

Sources:
Encyclopedia of the Nations http://www.nationsencyclopedia.com
The World Factbook – Central Intelligence Agency https://www.cia.gov/library/publication/the-world-factbook/
World Factbook version 2.170324 Courtsey of Google App Store
            World Facts Free version 1.3 Courtsey of Google App Store



SYRIA
COUNTRY BIODATA
Country Name:
Conventional Long Form:  Syrian Arab Republic
Conventional Short Form: Syria
Former: United Arab Republic (with Egypt)
Capital:Damascus
Continent: Asia
Location:Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the west Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest.
Population(2018 estimate):18,284,407 (63rd)
Geographical Area (km2):185,180
Current Constitution: 27 February, 2012
Independence (de-jure): 24 October, 1945
Ethnic groups: Syria Arabs, Arameans, Kurds, Turkomans, Assyrians, Cirassians,
Armenian.
System of government:
Languages:Arabic (official); Kurdish, Aremenian, Aramaic, Circassian, widely understood;
French, English somewhat understood.
Religion:87% Islam, 10% Christianity, 3% Druzism

Sources:
Encyclopedia of the Nations http://www.nationsencyclopedia.com
The World Factbook – Central Intelligence Agency https://www.cia.gov/library/publication/the-world-factbook/
World Factbook version 2.170324 Courtsey of Google App Store
            World Facts Free version 1.3 Courtsey of Google App Store

Abstract
Middle East has remained one of the most crisis prone geopolitical zones in the world. In short, it has been in the middle of socio-political, economic and religious crises from time immemorial. The crises in the zone are multifaceted. The crises range from power rivalry due toquest for political hegemony among Israel, Iran and Saudi Arabia. This power tussle is what defines the level of peace between one country and another among Arab world. The Egypt-Syrian conflictsand peace have intricate link to what we call “the middle east power tussle and alliance” as we are going to examine them.
Conflict and peace between Arab Republic of Egyptand Syrian Arab Republic can be best described as similar to the one between spouse. This is because they have many things in common. Like a similar historical origin and long time established common socio-cultural believes. The years immediately following Syria’s declared independence were marked by instability and repeated government coups. Syria joined with Egypt and became the United Arab Republic in 1958, but the union split a few short years later in 1961. The 1960s brought more military coups, revolts and riots. In 1963, the Arab Socialist Baath Party, which was active throughout the Middle East since the late 1940s, seized power of Syria in a coup known as the Baath Revolution which marked the first official conflict between Egypt and Syria because it led to the dissolution of United Arab Republic. Although, years later peace was restored between two the nations.

For instance, in 1973, Egypt and Syria launched the Yom Kippur War on Israel with a coordinated attack to retake Sinai and the Golan. Although the two weeks long war ended withIsrael retaining the Sinai and Golan. Egyptian-Syrian relations have become strained due to Egyptian presidentAnwar al-Sadat 's peace treaty with Israel in the Camp David Accords . Hafez al-Assad severed all relations with Egypt after the signing of the peace deal, and diplomatic relations were not re-established until 2005, when Egypt once again enjoyed warm relations with Syria under the rule of Bashar al-Assad.
Keywords: Conflict, Peace, relationship, war, revolution.
United Arab Republic: The Genesis of Conflict and Peace
According to Jankowski (2002), in his work entitled Nasser's Egypt, Arab Nationalism, and the United Arab Republic,pan-Arab sentiment was traditionally very strong in Syria, and Nasser was a popular hero-figure throughout the Arab world following the Suez War of 1956. There was thus considerable popular support in Syria for union with Nasser's Egypt. The Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party was the leading advocate of such a union.  On 1 February 1958, a group of political and military leaders in Syria proposed a merger of the two states to Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser. Thus, on 22 February 1958, the United Arab Republic was formed. However, the newly created republic was short lived and collapsed a mere three years later, on 1961 following the 1961 Syrian coup d'état.
Aftermath of Regime Change and the Level of Conflict and Peace between Egypt and Syria

Egypt and Syria have not fared well in the area of political leadership. There have been many coup d’etat and other unconstitutional means of changing political leaders in the two states. The implication of these regime instabilities is that it leads to domestic and foreign policy inconsistent. In this section, we are going to examine how regime change has either promoted peace or conflict in the two states.
Currently, both countries have embassy in Cairo and Damascus respectively. Relations were generally well under the reign ofHosni Mubarak,but itstrained under the hardliner Morsi . Egypt closed down its embassy in Damascus in 2011. However, relations were restored and the embassies reopened in both Egypt and Syria after the military coup in Egypt that toppled Morsi.

Conflict and Peace under Mubarak Era
Egypt–Syria relations had generally been peaceful during the rule of Hosni Mubarak. They were once strained under the leadership ofAnwar al-Sadat as we have rightly cited after he made a peace deal with Israel in 1967. Hafez al-Assad severed all relations with Egypt after the signing of the peace deal, and were not re-established until 2005, when Egypt once again enjoyed warm relations with Syria under the rule of Bashar al-Assad.

Conflict and Peace under Morsi
On 23 May, 2012, Mohamed Morsi was elected as Egyptian president, and the presidency became the main reference for the foreign policy, as the legal requirements of the political system were completed.The Egyptian foreign policy towards the Syrian crisis under Morsi witnessed clear fluctuations in the beginning. Morsi raised the level of the political discourse by describing the Syrian regime as a dictatorship and that its overthrow was a matter of moral duty before being a political duty. Meanwhile, Egyptian-Iranian relations made apparent progress, evidenced by Ahmadinejad’s visit to Cairo in early February 2013. Egypt considered Iran part of the solution in Syria and insisted that Iran be part of the Quartet group resolving the Syrian crisis. Morsi also praised Russia’s policies in dealing with the Syrian crisis.
 Conflict and Peace under Al-Sisi
Along with the coup carried out by the Defence Minister Abdel Fatah Al-Sisi on 3 July, 2013, against the Muslim Brotherhood and the overthrow of the first democratically elected president after the revolution, the Egyptian support for the Syrian opposition ended. A new stage of indirect support for the regime began under the explicit pretext of Egypt’s national interests, and the implicit hostility towards the Muslim Brotherhood.
Al-Sisi was not able to openly declare his support for Damascus due to the fact that the regime was directly responsible for the Syrian crisis, on one hand, and because such open positions would seem out of the ordinary amongst Arabs and the international community. He also wanted to avoid angering the Gulf states as he needed their financial support, especially in the case of Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Therefore, Al-Sisi adopted an opposite tactic, i.e. containing the radical Syrian opposition, including the Muslim Brotherhood, in service of the Syrian regime; this began with the clear suffocation and crackdown on the opposition, thus driving them to leave the country.
The Egyptian position on the National Coalition for Syrian Revolution and Opposition Forces was clear when Al-Sisi did not incite the coalition to attend the Arab Summit or the first and second Cairo meetings in an attempt to help the National Coordination Committee to face the coalition. This was clearly expressed by Al-Sisi when he stressed the need to support a moderate opposition.
Post-Revolution Egypt and Civil War in Syria
After the Arab Spring and the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood, relations became extremely strained with constituted a threat to peace between the two countries. The Muslim Brotherhood is a banned organisation in Syria and its membership is a capital offence in Syria. Egypt severed all relations with the Syrian Arab Republic in 2011, after Syrian security forces crackdown on civilians.
Egypt has since supported the Syrian opposition and has called on Assad to step down. This is mainly due to the rule of Sunni hardliners and Muslim Brotherhood supporters in Egypt who have opposed the Shi'ite-dominated government. On June 15, 2013, Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi ordered the closing of the Syrian Embassy in Cairo and a no-fly zone over Syria. However, diplomatic relations were restored and the embassies reopened after Morsi was regime was deposed just weeks later by current President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi . In July 2013, the two countries agreed to re-open the Egyptian consulate in Damascus and the Syrian consulate in Cairo.
Despite the restoration of diplomatic ties, relations between Assad's Syria and Sisi's Egypt have been lukewarm. In July 2015, President Sisi told a delegation of Lebanese diplomats to prepare for the Assad regime's imminent collapse. In late November 2016, some Arab media outlets reported Egyptian pilots arrived in mid-November to Syria to help the Syrian government in its fight against the Islamic State and Al Nusra front. This came after Sisi publicly stated he supports the Syrian military in the civil war in Syria. However, several days later, Egypt officially denied it has a military presence in Syria.
Egypt's Syria Peace Policies and Issues
As we have noted that Egypt-Syria relations is largely defined by what we call “Arab power alliance “. That is why Sievers (2015) notes that even if Cairo wanted to normalize relations with the Assad regime, its need to stay on good terms with Saudi Arabia and the UAE would seriously constrain how far it could go in that direction.
During his one-year presidency, Muhammad Morsi's signature diplomatic initiative was an effort to launch a regional dialogue on Syria that was to group Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Turkey. Morsi's advisors made clear on more than one occasion that this initiative was intended to restore Egypt's traditional position as a regional power center and diplomatic mediator. The initiative went nowhere, as the Saudis rejected working with Iran and were more than a little suspicious of Morsi's intentions as well. Morsi then sought to make Cairo the center of the mainstream Syrian opposition and, for a time, welcomed Syrian refugees to reside in Egypt.
After the military intervened to overthrow Morsi in July 2013, however, one of the first shifts in policy by the interim government was to downgrade the profile of the Syrian opposition and restrict the movements of Syrians in Egypt. The association in Egyptian minds of the mainstream Syrian opposition with Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood ensured that Egypt would not continue to support the opposition and may have led to some discreet contacts with the Assad regime. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs supported the idea of a diplomatic settlement without defining Assad's potential role in Syria's future.
Despite the Egyptian military's traditional ties to Syria and their aversion to the Syrian opposition, Sisi's Egypt remains unlikely to get too close to the Assad regime, primarily due to the Egyptian leadership's close connections to and dependence on support from the Arab Gulf states. Even if Egypt wanted to normalize ties to the Syrian regime, their need to stay on good terms with the Saudis and Emiratis in particular is likely to continue to impose serious constraints on how far they can go.
Egypt’s Policy Toward the Syrian Civil War
According to Asmawy (2013), the emergence and demise of an Islamist government in Egypt provides a stimulating terrain for inquiring on religious-based worldviews and foreign policy-making. For instance, commentators and politicians accounted for changes in Cairo’s stance regarding developments in Syria in confessional or religious terms. The challenge, nevertheless, lies in apprehending such a factor, among others- without essentializing it. Based on interviews, discourse analysis, and an examination of domestic politics and regional dynamics, this paper will seek to unravel how religious worldviews may inform (or misinform) us about Egypt’s foreign policy shifts towards Syria’s conflict between 2012 and 2013.
Abdul-Aziz (2015) in his analysis contends that unlike the majority of Arab countries, the Egyptian policy on the Syrian crisis was not determined based on the developments of the crisis but rather on the internal situation in Egypt and the change in authority over the past four years. This formed Egypt’s political position on the Syrian crisis.
The Egyptian stance towards the Syrian civil war has been clear since the beginning of the Syrian crisis in 2011. Egypt has reaffirmed many times peaceful and political solution is the only solution to the Syrian crisis (Sayed, 2017).
First, Egypt has not been involved in any conflict with Syrian parties, which are main factors in the ceasefire agreements; and it has not backed any armed Syrian faction. Second, Egypt has good relations with Russia (co-sponsor of the ceasefire). Third, Egypt’s role confined to only mediation,” al-Jarba elaborated during the conference.
Conclusion
We have to conclude this examination of the Egypt-Syrianconflict and peace by citing the statement made byEgyptian Foreign Affairs Minister, Sameh Shokary that Egypt’s role in Syria in the  ongoing conflict is ‘political’ not ‘militant’. Hecontends that Egypt is playing a political role not a militant one in Syria, he noted that it is looking to decline waves of violence in the war-torn country, for the sake of creating peaceful areas for civilians and saving them.
Shokary’s statements came during a press conference held in Moscow between him and his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov, where he stressed that Egypt is keen to play a political role that will help minimize conflict in the region. This shows that in the amidst of political conflict in Syria, Egypt is also promoting peace in the state through their various shuttle diplomacy.
Although Egypt has not been vocal in support for any sides of Syria's ongoing civil war, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi said in 2016 that his nation's priority is "supporting national armies", which he said included the Syrian Armed Forces . He also said regarding Egypt's stance in the conflict: "Our stance in Egypt is to respect the will of the Syrian people, and that a political solution to the Syrian crisis is the most suitable way, and to seriously deal with terrorist groups and disarm them,".
At the beginning of March, 2018Speaker of the People’s Assembly, Saad El-Katatni, stated during his speech to the Arab Inter-Parliamentary Union (AIPU) in Kuwait that the People’s Assembly is coordinating with representatives of the Syrian opposition. He also proposed an initiative for resolving the Syrian crisis, in a step reflecting the Egyptian diplomacy towards the Syrian crisis. The initiative consists of six points:
 The need to give top priority to immediately stopping violence
 The need to propose a solution to the crisis.
 Start serious political dialogue.
 Provide support to the Egyptian people.
 Unite the opposition forces.
 Take care of the displaced Syrian people.

















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