British Prime Minister David Cameron should push for an open political process in Egypt during his meeting with President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, said the Financial Times.
President Sisi will visit London on Wednesday for talks with Cameron. The visit was preceded with controversy in Britain with opponents citing Egypt’s poor human rights record since the removal of former President Mohamed Morsi in 2013.
Back in June, when the government invited Sisi for a visit in 2015, the United Kingdom defended its invitation saying “it is important that we engage with countries where there are issues which are important to the UK's national interests and [discuss] how we can work together on them.”
“David Cameron’s government prioritizes commercial ties to the exclusion of almost everything else. In the case of the Egyptian leader, that would be particularly short-sighted,” the Financial Times wrote.
The Financial Times also pondered whether encouraging authoritarian rule, in reference to Sisi, would push Egypt to join other “failing states” in the region.
The newspaper said that although Britain remains among Egypt's top foreign investors, and despite how useful to London economic cooperation with Cairo would be, the “economy will not flourish in Egypt, or anywhere else in the Middle East, without open politics and a reinvigorated society”.
