CIA Chief Burns meets with Egypt’s Sisi

CIA Director William Burns met with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in Cairo Sunday for talks focused on security cooperation and regional crises, the Egyptian presidency said.

The meeting covered “a number of regional issues of common interest, especially tensions in the Middle East as well as Afghanistan, the Renaissance Dam (in Ethiopia) and the crisis in Libya,” read a statement from Sisi’s office.

The Biden administration has praised Cairo for its role in mediating the latest round of Palestinian-Israeli violence. In May, Egypt brokered a cease-fire between Israel and Gaza-based militant group Hamas, ending 11 days of fighting that killed over 250 Palestinians and 13 residents of Israel.

Burns and Sisi reportedly discussed the North African country’s long-running dispute with Ethiopia over Addis Ababa’s filling of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), a megadam on the Nile’s main tributary that both Egypt and Sudan say could dangerously restrict their freshwater supplies.

Also present for the talks was US Ambassador to Egypt Jonathan Cohen and head of Egyptian intelligence Chief Abbas Kamel, whose visit to Washington last month was slammed by human rights groups.

The Egyptian readout of the meeting between Burns and Sisi didn’t mention human rights, which Secretary of State Antony Blinken pledged would be “central” to the US-Egypt relationship. During the 2020 presidential campaign, Biden pledged no more “blank checks” for Sisi, a military general turned dictator accused of a sweeping clampdown on dissent.

At $1.3 billion annually, Egypt is the second-highest recipient of US military financing after Israel. By the end of September, Blinken must decide whether to release $300 million in military aid that’s conditioned on Egypt making progress on human rights.

Dana Stroul, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East, told a Senate hearing last week that continued aid is necessary in light of Egypt’s “legitimate security concerns.”

“Security assistance to Egypt is a critical tool in supporting those needs,” she told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “The current view of the administration is that Egypt is playing a constructive role when it comes to border security, Libya, GERD, obviously the conflict in Gaza, et cetera.”

Burns, a career diplomat, met last week with new Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett in Tel Aviv to discuss threats posed by Iran and its nuclear program. His meeting with Bennett followed a fatal drone strike on an Israeli-linked vessel off the coast of Oman that both the United States and Israel have blamed on Tehran.