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Tunisia courts Egypt amid presidential dispute with Islamist Ennahda party

Tunisian President Saied Kais recently paid his first visit to Egypt since assuming power in 2019, in what analysts say is a move aimed at cementing relations in the face of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Tunisian President Kais Saied delivers a speech following the launch of Russia's Soyuz-2.1a carrier rocket from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan carrying 38 foreign satellites, among them Tunisia's first satellite Challenge-1, at Telnet telecommunications group, Tunis, Tunisia, March 22, 2021.
Tunisian President Kais Saied delivers a speech following the launch of Russia's Soyuz-2.1a carrier rocket from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan carrying 38 foreign satellites, among them Tunisia's first satellite Challenge-1, at Telnet telecommunications group, Tunis, Tunisia, March 22, 2021. — Fethi Belaid/AFP via Getty Images

On his first official visit to Egypt since he assumed power in 2019, Tunisian President Kais Saied arrived April 9 in Cairo on a three-day visit that comes amid a drastic change in regional and internal dynamics.

At a joint press conference with his Egyptian counterpart in Cairo April 10, Saied said that he agreed with President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on the importance of bilateral and regional relations.

Rafaa Tabib, a professor of political anthropology at the University of Manouba, told Al-Monitor that as far as Egypt is concerned, the visit came amid the faltering Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) negotiations between Cairo and Addis Ababa.

Tunisia, he said, is a nonpermanent Arab member of the United Nations Security Council, and it will represent Egypt within the council during the coming period of major diplomatic conflict between Cairo and Addis Ababa.

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