Trump welcomes strongman leader

SPECIAL: EGYPT’S AL-SISI IN FIRST VISIT TO WHITE HOUSE

The thorny issue of the Palestine-Israeli peace process was on the agenda.

US President Donald Trump met his Egyptian counterpart Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in Washington yesterday, welcoming a strongman leader who has faced harsh criticism for his human rights record.

For Sisi, the first foreign leader to congratulate Trump following his surprise election victory, the Oval Office meeting had special meaning – he was never invited to the White House by former president Barack Obama.

The thorny issue of the Palestinian-Israeli peace process was on the agenda, as was the fight against the Islamic State jihadist group.

Egypt and Jordan are the only two Arab states to have signed peace treaties with Israel and would likely be considered key players in any renewed peace effort.

Trump has sent mixed signals over how he will address the peace process, deadlocked since April 2014.

He broke with decades of US policy during a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in February when he declared that he was not bound to a two-state solution, meaning an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel.

Trump said he would be open to a single state if it meant peace. But he also called on Israel to “hold back on settlements for a little bit”.

The former New York property tycoon and the former Egyptian army general previously met in September when the campaign was in full swing.

Trump at the time called Sisi a “fantastic guy”.

Their meeting yesterday was expected to give valuable insight on how the Trump White House plans to address the issue of human rights.

A senior administration official said in a briefing that the topic would be handled in a “private, more discreet way”.

“We believe it’s the most effective way to advance those issues to a favourable outcome,” he said.

This stance was slammed by rights groups.

“Inviting al-Sisi for an official visit to Washington as tens of thousands of Egyptians rot in jail and when torture is again the order of the day is a strange way to build a stable strategic relationship,” said Sarah Margon, Washington director of Human Rights Watch.

The Obama administration froze military aid to Egypt after the 2013 ouster of former president Mohamed Morsi – led by Sisi, who was defence minister at the time – and a bloody crackdown on his supporters. –