Arab League urges ‘diplomatic’ resolution to ‘crisis in Ukraine’ without mention of Russia

As the West continues to close ranks against Russia, with the United States and the United Kingdom deploying sanctions against the Central Bank of Russia on the fourth day of President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, member states in the Arab League remained decidedly on the fence with a statement released after an emergency meeting on Monday.

The statement urged a diplomatic resolution to “the crisis in Ukraine” and acknowledged the “close relations” the Arab states share with “the two sides in the crisis,” without once making direct mention of Russia.

Yet two Egyptian government sources told Mada Masr on condition of anonymity that the US has asked Egypt and several other countries in the region directly to provide support to Kyiv, at least on the political front. 

The request put Egypt in a bind. Cairo and several other regional capitals hold established and necessary relations with the United States, but are also in the process of building closer ties with Russia, the government sources said. 

It was this conundrum, said the two government officials, that led Cairo to call for a meeting of permanent delegates to the Arab League to convene on Monday to discuss the regional body’s response to the Russian invasion.

Thus far, only the Lebanese foreign ministry has spoken out to condemn Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine directly.  Egypt issued a Foreign Ministry statement on Thursday expressing “concern” about the situation.

The UAE, the current Arab member of the United Nations Security Council, in turn, joined China and India in abstaining from voting on two resolutions condemning the invasion of Ukraine on Saturday, despite the US softening the language in the second resolution. 

More definitive support for Russia was forthcoming from Syria, given Moscow’s history of deploying firepower to support the regime of President Bashar al-Assad, and from Algeria, a traditional Russian ally. 

While Sudan’s sovereign council, headed by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, issued an official position on Monday, in favor of a solution to the "crisis" in Ukraine through "dialogue," Burhan’s second in command and leader of the Rapid Support Forces militia Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo "Hemedti" had flown to Moscow on Wednesday where he met with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov the next day as the invasion began, his visit gaining heavy criticism back home.

One of the sources said that, beyond political support for Ukraine, Washington and several European countries are concerned with “many details of [Arab states’] relations with Russia.”

The US has expressed unease on previous occasions, said the source, about Egypt’s increasing military, security and economic cooperation with Moscow, “forcing Cairo to reduce the pace of some aspects of cooperation,” added the source. “This angered Moscow, which always feels troubled by Cairo viewing it as an alternative to be resorted to when there is tension in relations with the US.”

But both sources said Cairo is unlikely to undertake any serious reorientation of its relationship with Moscow.

Egypt and Russia share diplomatic interests in a number of regional files, including East Africa, Libya and the Sahel and Saharan states, the latter of which are spheres of influence where Russia increasingly has a footprint in areas once considered a backyard for France.  

Egypt has substantial economic ties with Russia as well. Russia’s Rosatom is undertaking the construction of the nuclear power station at Dabaa, a project worth at least US$26 billion. Recent months have also witnessed a resurgence in Russian tourism to Egypt, with flights from Russia resuming in 2021, having been suspended after a militant attack over South Sinai that downed a Russian plane, killing over 200 people, most of them Russian nationals.

Tension in US-Egyptian relations, rooted in human rights concerns that have seen the US withhold a symbolic US$130 million in military aid, could lead Egypt to assume a more complex approach in its relations with both Russia and China, said the sources.

“We were preparing to increase all aspects of cooperation with China,” a third government source told Mada Masr on condition of anonymity, “and we are determined to move forward in this direction, but we certainly expect US hostility.”