(MENAFN- The Journal Of Turkish Weekly) Since taking office last May, Egypt's President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi has been working hard to diversify the country's strategic relations with foreign powers after decades of submission to the political will of the United States, political observers said on Wednesday.
"The United States abandoned Egypt after the revolution against Mohammed Morsi in 2013. It was a good chance for Sisi to search for new strong allies and partners that would help him regain the weight Egypt always had," Sadeeq Sadeq, a Cairo-based expert of political sociology, told Xinhua.
The U.S.-Egyptian relations have further worsened when Washington suspended its economic and military aid to Egypt in 2013, creating a state of mistrust between the two countries.
Russia and China were the alternative for the United States," Sadeeq said.
Sisi is now paying an official three-day visit to Russia, his second in the past three months. He also visited Beijing last year, and is scheduled to participate a grand military parade in the Chinese capital to commenorate the 70th anniversary of the victory of the Second World War.
Russian President Vladimir Putin told a joint press conference with Sisi on Wednesday that his country is determined to establish an industrial zone in Egypt, and lend Russia's expertise in building nuclear power plants to the North African country.
Sisi's frequent visits to Russia are indications to Egypt's willingness to have closer ties and further cooperation with Russia as part of the North African country's foreign policy to balance its ties with world powers.
Egypt was one of Russia's closest allies for two decades starting from the 1950s, under Egypt's late leader Gamal Abdel Nasser.
However, relations between the two countries froze in the 1970s when former President Anwar al-Sadat shifted Egypt's foreign policy and military alignment towards Washington soon after the 1973 Egyptian war with Israel.
Sadeeq said the Egyptian leader also see in the European countries important partners for his country despite that they used to follow the United States on the overthrow of Morsi.
The expert noted that Sisi has managed to convince most of the European leaders that it was a revolution against a dictatorship, not a coup.
According to the observer, Sisi believes that having new world partners other than the United States is in favor of Egypt because big powers like Russia and Europe will never poke their nose into the internal affairs of Egypt.
"They will not take their cooperation as a mean to pressure Egypt and tell the rulers of the country what their policies should be as Washington has always done," he pointed out.
Egypt's cooperation with those countries is growing steadily and rapidly, and that is certainly not a piece of good news for Washington which has also been trying to fix its troubled relations with Cairo, Sadeeq said.
The expert said that Washington, for sure, tries through to repair what has been damaged and to shut the doors in front of any possible stronger Egyptian relations with other major countries.
He added that America cannot stop the wheel of bilateral ties between Egypt and those big powers because they have already reached great levels.
"Sisi has changed the political approach in Egypt... he has no problem to cooperate with Washington. But at the same time he will not give the United States the chance to control the Egyptian political decisions and strategies," Sadeeq said.
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