Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry delivered on Sunday a speech on behalf of President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi on the item related to the report of the activities of the Peace and Security Council.
Foreign Ministry spokesman, Ambassador Ahmed Abu Zeid said that the Foreign Minister began his speech by referring to the summit being held this year under the delicate regional and international circumstances.
This requires cooperation to face the existing security challenges, especially with the increasing complexity of the challenges, which require more effective methods to deal with them.
The speech also highlighted the priorities of joint African action to ensure the provision of peace and security to the countries of the continent, including the concerted efforts of Africa to contain the conflict situations on the continent and find lasting solutions.
These solutions must be consistent with the principles of justice, fairness and upholding the interests of the people, and parties to conflicts must be committed to the principle of African solutions to African problems.
Minister Shoukry added that there is now an urgent need to deal from a comprehensive perspective with security challenges and threats on the continent, in order to address the root causes of these challenges and their economic and social causes, as this is one of the main axes of Egypt’s vision for the issue of reconstruction and development, which is led by the President Al-Sisi.
On the appropriateness of starting to adopt a more positive and more understanding approach to the nature of internal interactions in our African countries that are going through stages of political transition, the Egyptian statement addressed the situation in Sudan in light of the progress it has made towards restoring stability and ending the transitional phase.
Additionally there is e need to provide the necessary support to the brothers in Libya to hold the parliamentary and presidential elections under the umbrella of an impartial executive authority, so as to restore Libya’s sovereignty and stability.
Foreign Minister Shoukry said that Egypt is keen on activating the African Free Trade Area, stressing that the African Summit is an opportunity to work on putting down guns and dealing with African crises and conflicts.
Egypt is “working to finalize its own protocols and put them into practice,” he said in remarks on the sidelines of the 36th African Summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
He noted that the AU summit “is being held this year in international circumstances full of challenges,” and also “as we celebrate 60 years since the establishment of the Organization of African Unity and the subsequent consensus among African countries to establish the Union.”
“The summit addressed all current challenges, the Ukraine crisis and its associated challenges, in reference to the challenges related to food security, the debt crisis, putting down the guns and dealing with African crises and conflicts,” he said.
“The summit is an opportunity to create a common vision for the countries of the continent to deal with challenges,” the Egyptian foreign minister said.
