(Photo : Presidency hand out )
President Mohamed Morsi opened the first session of the Egyptian Forum on Foreign Policy on Saturday. The forum was attended by high-ranking government officials including the Minister of Foreign Affairs Mohamed Kamel Amr, representatives of the Egyptian Council of Foreign Affairs, academics, and other policy experts.
The forum was dubbed ‘A New Vision for Egyptian Foreign Policy’ and sought to revisit the country’s approach to external relations and evaluate its overall vision.
The meeting was scheduled to be composed of three sessions. The first one was to be entitled ‘Overall vision of Egyptian foreign policy,’ the second ‘Interim strategy for foreign policy’ and the final session ‘Research work in the field of foreign policy’.
In his opening speech, President Morsi said he hoped that the forum would work with other active foreign policy think tanks in the country, involving the country’s specialists and students to develop new foreign policy-making processes.
“I am confident that we are all aware of the size of the daunting challenges we face in the task of rebuilding Egyptian state institutions after they were deformed over the course of several decades,” said the president in his address, saying those attending would contribute to reinvigorating those institutions.
The president said that the forum marked the beginning of a new approach that would not stop at foreign policy but reach different fields of work in the country, marking the importance of government institutions retaining ties with academic and research groups. Morsi added this would create a “renaissance” in selected fields and specialities.
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