Egypt: El-Sisi visits Trump, requests Muslim Brotherhood be declared a terrorist group

Egypt’s president, Abdel- Fattah El-Sisi on Monday became the first Arab head of state to visit the American, white house, El- Sisi during the visit,would request that political Islamic groups especially the Brotherhood be declared a terrorist group.

President Trump praised Sisi and referenced their first meeting, during the 2016 presidential campaign, describing him as “somebody that is been very close to me from the first time I met him.”

Sisi, in return, said to Trump “ I had a deep appreciation and admiration of your unique personality, especially as you are standing very strong in the counter-terrorism field.”

The objective, of the visit, the administration said, is to rebuild relations strained during the Obama years by Egypt’s crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood.

Unlike Trump, the former president, Barack Obama decline to invite El-Sisi to the White House during his term in office.

El-Sisi led the 2013 overthrow of Egypt’s first democratically elected president, Mohamed Morsi, and later ascended to the top of Egypt’s government. He has since been accused of employing repressive tactics, including jailing thousands of political opponents and protesters.

He and Trump are likely to “see eye-to-eye that there is no political Islam that’s moderate or not moderate.
The meeting between the two leaders comes at a critical time fo El-Sisi, months after the country’s currency exchange restrictions were lifted, annual inflation shot up to over 30 percent and the pound’s value halved against the dollar.

Egypt President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi is to become the first head of state from the African continent to visit the Trump White House pic.twitter.com/Y03CimYnfs

— Kenyanwallstreet (@kenyanwalstreet) April 3, 2017

A fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Eric Trager said Support from Trump, including an affirmation of Egypt’s Middle East standing, would provide El-Sisi’s policies with a strong measure of validation domestically and regionally.