Region

GAZA/RAMALLAH — As Israelis prepare to elect a new government next week, the view from the Palestinian territories in the West Bank and Gaza is not one of hope.

The decades-old conflict has barely featured in the campaign, leaving Palestinians with the sense that whether Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu secures a fourth term in office or the centre-left opposition pulls off a victory, as the latest polls suggest, little is likely to change.

Peace talks broke down in April 2014, after nine months of negotiations led by the United States, with the long-standing goal of a two-state solution — Israel and an independent Palestine side-by-side — no closer.

"The two-state solution is no longer on the table," said Gaza-based political analyst Talal Okal.

"Israel is moving towards isolating and confiscating all of Jerusalem," he said, while Gaza, a 40-km-long strip of land on the Mediterranean coast, remains blockaded by Israel and Egypt, the movement of people and goods closely monitored.

In the West Bank, which Israel has occupied along with East Jerusalem since the 1967 Middle East war, Okal said the military was tightening its grip, citing recent exercises in which 13,000 Israeli troops were mobilised.

With economic and social issues dominant ahead of the March 17 vote, the chances of Netanyahu or his chief rival, Zionist Union leader Isaac Herzog, shifting focus to peace and the Palestinians is slim.

What's more, the policy of building Jewish settlements on occupied land is unlikely to change after the election, with Netanyahu and his allies advocating further expansion and the Zionist Union in favour of building more homes in existing settlement blocs, despite strong US and European criticism.

"A white wolf is like a black wolf, each is a treacherous hunter," said Hussein Abdallah, 85, as he rode on a donkey cart in Gaza, surrounded by five of his grandchildren.

Abdallah has seen every election in Israel's 67-year history and said he saw no real difference between the left and the right in that time, despite repeated talk of peace.

"There is no dove, no sheep in that herd," he said.

Unilateral steps

Expressing his thoughts on the election last week, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas steered clear of criticism, saying he was ready to work with whomever wins, while encouraging Arab-Israelis to support their own united list.

"I say frankly, anyone who comes out on top... we will regard him as our partner and we will deal with this man regardless of his policies," the 79-year-old told a meeting of the Palestine Liberation Organisation in the West Bank.

But Abbas is only half the equation. The Islamist movement Hamas still holds sway in Gaza, while enjoying support in the West Bank, too. Its founding charter still calls for Israel's destruction and it sees no Israeli partner for peace.

"Hamas does not care when it comes to the Israeli election," said spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri. "Despite the differences between [the Israeli] parties, they are united in denying Palestinian rights and supporting aggression against our people."

With much of the Israeli electorate leaning to the right, and favouring strong security policies when it comes to the West Bank and Gaza, Palestinian analysts suggest it is naive to hope for any dramatic change in circumstances.

"The Palestinians should be betting on strengthening their internal situation," said Hani Al Masri, a political scientist based in the West Bank. "If we do not help ourselves, no one, neither in Israel nor in America, is going to help us."

Instead, the Palestinian leadership is likely to pursue unilateral steps to establish de facto independence, including filing charges against Israel at the International Criminal Court next month, a move that will aggravate Israel and may also isolate allies in Europe and Washington.

WASHINGTON — The top US military officer on Wednesday predicted certain victory by Iraqi forces and Shiite militia battling to retake the city of Tikrit but voiced concern about how Sunni Muslims would be treated once Daesh militants were driven away.

The remarks to Congress by General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, came as Iraqi security forces and Iranian-backed militia advanced from the north and south to fight their way into Tikrit, former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's home city.

It was their biggest counteroffensive so far against Daesh militants, and US forces, despite their deep investment in Iraq's war, have been watching from the sidelines.

"There's no doubt that the combination of the Popular Mobilization forces and the Iraqi security forces, they're going to run ISIL out of Tikrit," Dempsey told a Senate hearing, using an acronym for the militant group.

"The question is what comes after, in terms of their willingness to let Sunni families move back into their neighbourhoods, whether they work to restore the basic services that are going to be necessary, or whether it results in atrocities and retribution."

The Tikrit operation is the most visible demonstration yet of how the United States and Iran, which duelled viciously over Iraq during the years of US occupation, seem to be working in tandem against Daesh.

If Iraq's Shiite-led government retook Tikrit it would be the first city clawed back from the Sunni insurgents and would give it momentum in the next, pivotal stage of the campaign: recapturing Mosul, the largest city in the north.

Dempsey said the forces advancing on Tikrit were overwhelmingly composed of 20,000 Iranian-backed Shiite Muslim militias known as Hashid Shaabi (Popular Mobilisation) units.

"I would describe them as Iranian-trained and somewhat Iranian equipped," Dempsey said, adding he had no indications they intended to attack the nearly 3,000 American forces now stationed in Iraq.

In addition, there was an Iraqi brigade of about 3,000 troops as well as a couple of hundred forces from the Iraqi counter-terrorist service, Dempsey said.

Dempsey, fresh back from a trip to Iraq this week, said the outcome of Tikrit would speak volumes about whether Iran would use its influence in Iraq constructively.

"The Tikrit operation will be a strategic inflection point one way or the other in terms of easing our concerns or increasing them," he said.

BEIRUT — Daesh terror goup released a video Tuesday purporting to show a young boy executing an Arab Israeli who it claimed infiltrated the group in Syria to spy for Israel.

In the video, a youth identifying himself as 19-year-old Mohammed Said Ismail Musallam recounts how he was recruited by Israeli intelligence.

Dressed in an orange jumpsuit that is standard in videos of Daesh executions, he is shown kneeling in front of the boy, who appears to be no more than 12 years old, and a man standing at his side.

The man, speaking in French, issues threats against Jews in France, before the boy walks around in front of the hostage and then shoots him in the forehead using a pistol.

The boy, who shouts "Allahu Akbar" ("God is greatest" in Arabic), then shoots the man four more times as he lies on the ground.

In February, Musallam's father denied in comments to AFP the Daesh claim that his son was an Israeli agent.

"My son is innocent; IS [Daesh] accused him of working for Mossad because he tried to run away," Said Musallam said, claiming that his son had travelled to Syria to join the jihadists.

Wanted to 'flee jihadists' 

"He is absolutely not religious," Musallam said, adding that perhaps his son had been recruited through the Internet.

Dabiq, the Daesh online English-language magazine, said Mohammed had been tasked by Israel with gathering information on Daesh bases and weapons and on Palestinians volunteering to fight for the group in Syria.

A spokesman for Israel's Shin Bet security service told AFP Mohammed had left home on October 24 "on his own initiative", implying that he had not been sent by Israel.

Official Israeli policy is not to comment on such allegations.

The Shin Bet spokesman said Mohammed travelled from Israel to Turkey and "from there crossed to Syria and joined IS to fight for the organisation".

Said Musallam said his son, an Israeli citizen, abandoned his national service in the fire department to join Daesh.

He said the last time they spoke by phone Mohammed was in Raqqa, the self-proclaimed capital of the jihadist "caliphate" in northern Syria.

He said his son wanted to return home after having completing basic training.

He said he was very worried about his son's fate at the hands of Daesh, which has brutally executed many prisoners in recent months.

Asked if he could raise a ransom in exchange for his son, the father said he was a mere bus driver with no property or assets to his name.

The family lives in the Jewish settlement neighbourhood of Neve Yaakov in Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem.

Said Musallam was born in the occupied West Bank but said his four children have Israeli passports.

According to Dabiq, Mohammed was recruited in Neve Yaakov by a Jewish neighbour working for the security services and was given away by his behaviour and his refusal to obey a commander.

The execution video released Tuesday was one of several produced by Daesh, starting with the beheading last August of American journalist James Foley and more recently including the burning to death of a captured Jordanian pilot and the beheading of 21 Coptic Christians.

Dalia Ghanem-Yazbeck, an analyst at the Carnegie Middle East Centre in Beirut, said the videos tend to coincide with jihadist military setbacks.

"With each military reverse... IS comes out with a shock video so that people will talk about them. This is a way to compensate for the military defeat with propaganda," she said.

Since early this month, Iraq forces have besieged Tikrit, a city captured by Daesh in a lightning sweep across the country's north last summer.

The video campaign is also seen by analysts as a recruitment vehicle for Daesh, which is thought to have between 25,000 and 80,000 fighters, including thousands of foreigners.

AL ALAM, Iraq — Iraqi troops and militias drove Daesh insurgents out of the town of Al Alam on Tuesday, clearing a final hurdle before a planned assault on Saddam Hussein’s home city of Tikrit in their biggest offensive yet against the ultra-radical group.

The power base of executed former president Saddam’s clan, Tikrit is the focus of a counter-offensive against Daesh by more than 20,000 troops and Shiite Muslim militias known as Hashid Shaabi, backed by local Sunni Muslim tribes.

If Iraq’s Shiite-led government is able to retake Tikrit it would be the first city clawed back from the Sunni insurgents and would give it momentum in the next, pivotal stage of the campaign — to recapture Mosul, the largest city in the north.

A Reuters photographer saw dozens of families, who earlier fled Al Alam to escape Daesh rule, return to the town, celebrating and slaughtering sheep for the victorious forces.

“I announce officially that the town is under the total control of security forces, the Hashid Shaabi [Popular Mobilisation] units and local tribal fighters,” said local mayor Laith Al Jubouri.

“We rejoice in this victory and we want Al Alam to be the launchpad for the liberation of Tikrit and Mosul,” he told Reuters by telephone.

Mosul in the far north is the largest city held by the ultra-radical Daesh terror group, who now rules a self-declared cross-border caliphate in Sunni regions of Syria and Iraq.

But the ultra-radical group over the past few months has gradually lost ground in Iraq to the army, Shiite militias and Kurdish peshmerga forces, backed by air strikes carried out by a U.S.-led coalition of mainly Western and allied Arab states.

The United States says Baghdad did not seek aerial backup from the coalition in the Tikrit campaign. Instead, support on the ground has come from neigbouring Iran, Washington’s longtime regional rival, which backs the Shiite militias and has sent an elite Revolutionary Guard commander to oversee part of the battle.

Ready for Tikrit

The Iraqi army and militias now control the two towns to the north and south of Tikrit along the Tigris River and appear ready to move on the city itself.

Security officials said the assault could start as early as Wednesday, although the 10-day campaign has so far been marked by gradual and steady advances rather than rapid attacks.

Security officials said Daesh fighters blew up a bridge over the Tigris on Tuesday, aiming to hinder any advance. Both Al Dour and Al Alam lie on the east bank of the river, opposite Tikrit. But the army has a large military base on the same western side from which it could send forces into Tikrit.

Hundreds of Shiite army recruits who abandoned the Speicher military base last June were shot dead in one of the biggest mass killings carried out by Daesh fighters.

There have been fears that the Shiite-dominated security forces and militia would seek revenge on local Sunni residents for the Speicher killings. In the nearby village of Albu Ajil, local officials said houses had been set on fire by the militia.

Some houses were also set alight in Al Alam, but local tribal fighters said they belonged to security force members and government workers and were burnt by the retreating insurgents.

A local official said security forces and militias had regained control over the Ajil oilfield northeast of Al Alam, but other sources said the situation was still unclear.

Black smoke columns could still be seen rising from the area and Jubouri, Al Alam mayor, said Daesh fighters set ablaze at least 10 wells in the oilfield. He could not confirm it was completely under the control of security forces.

An Interior Ministry source said two of the ministry’s armoured vehicles were hit by Daesh missiles or rockets north of Al Alam, and heavy clashes were taking place. He did not give details of casualties.

The Reuters photographer inside Al Alam saw two destroyed Daesh vehicles, which had been targeted by army helicopters on Tuesday, with charred bodies still inside.

Daesh has sent reinforcements to Tikrit from other parts of its “caliphate” further north, where it came under attack on Monday from Kurdish forces around the oil-rich-city of Kirkuk.

A Kurdish commander said his forces would press on with their offensive and had captured another village on Tuesday. They had stopped in an area called Kwas, but would resume in coming days, Major General Omar Hassan said.

DAMASCUS, Syria — A Syrian businessman facing European Union sanctions denied on Tuesday allegations that he bought oil from Daesh terror group for President Bashar Assad's government.

The EU put sanctions last week on George Haswani and six other prominent Syrian businessmen, freezing their assets and banning them from travelling to Europe. It also froze the assets of six companies also viewed as sponsors of the Syrian government.

Speaking to The Associated Press in his Damascus office, Haswani said the EU sanctions and accusations are politically motivated and said he is preparing to take unspecified legal action against the EU.

"There is no doubt that this unjust and political decision is not based on any evidence and I challenge them to put forward any proof or document that proves the reason behind the decision," he said. "This decision will lead to legal repercussions and the company and its reputation will be harmed, as well as its business. This is targeted damage for political reasons."

The EU said in its official journal that Haswani, co-owner of HESCO Engineering and Construction Co., a major engineering and construction company in Syria, has close ties to the government. It said he acts as "a middle man in deals for the purchase of oil from ISIL [Daesh]  by the Syrian regime”. 

The militants, who hold a third of Syria and neighbouring Iraq, sell oil on the black market to help fund their conquests. Much of the oil is smuggled out of Daesh-held territory in northern Syria to neighbouring Turkey. Syrian opposition and Western officials long have accused Assad's government of secretly acquiring fuel from the group as well.

Haswani questioned why black market traders in Turkey don't face EU sanctions.

"Where did the oil from Daesh area, that is about 100,000 barrels a day, go? Everyone knows where it goes and where it is being sold," he said.

"How do they move and market oil through Turkey? Where are these traders and why aren't they being punished?"

Tehran — Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif told top clerics Tuesday a letter from Republican senators undermining a possible nuclear deal had sapped Tehran's confidence in dealings with the United States.

Extending his criticism of the open letter, whose 47 signatories included several potential 2016 presidential candidates, Zarif said: "This kind of letter is unprecedented and undiplomatic. In truth, it told us that we cannot trust the United States."

Zarif's remarks, reported by the Isna news agency, came in Tehran at a meeting of the Assembly of Experts, Iran's top clerical body, where he gave an update on the negotiations with world powers for a comprehensive agreement on Iran's nuclear programme.

He said on Monday that the letter had "no legal value".

Effectively undercutting the White House, the senators wrote that President Barack Obama is in office only until January 2017, and a successor could scrap the agreement if Congress has not approved it.

While Iran and the United States are longtime foes, Zarif and his negotiating team have consistently said that the nuclear talks have been conducted in a good and serious atmosphere.

However he added Tuesday: "Negotiations with the United States are facing problems due to the presence of extremists in Congress."

The Republicans' letter appeared to be another bid to influence or even derail the talks between Iran and the P5+1 powers — Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia as well as the United States.

It also marked a rare foray by Congress into foreign policymaking, as US negotiations with other governments are a responsibility typically handled by the executive branch, not lawmakers.

Obama pilloried the letter, comparing the senators to Iranian MPs who seem opposed to detente, saying he would make his case for any possible nuclear deal to voters.

"It is somewhat ironic to see some members of Congress wanting to make common cause with hardliners in Iran," he said.

With a March deadline looming, negotiators are furiously working to agree the political outlines of a deal that would curb Iran's nuclear programme in return for the lifting of Western sanctions.

The fine details of the accord are meant to be settled by the end of June but Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has criticised the two-step process, saying matters should be handled in one sweep.

A new round of talks between Zarif and US Secretary of State John Kerry is due to take place in Lausanne, Switzerland on Sunday.

GAZA — A Qatari official visiting a Gaza neighbourhood heavily bombed in last summer's war with Israel said on Tuesday the Gulf Arab state had begun a project to rebuild 1,000 homes as part of a $1 billion aid pledge.

Mohammad Al Amadi, head of the Qatari Committee to Rebuild Gaza, said that earlier in the day Israel had allowed four truckloads of cement into the Gaza Strip so that the planned construction of the dwellings could begin.

The Israeli military agency that oversees policy related to civilian supplies to the Islamist Hamas-ruled Palestinian enclave said such shipments are handled by the Palestinian self-rule body under "a joint mechanism for reconstruction" established jointly by the United Nations, Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

"Today we are starting the $1 billion [effort]," Amadi told reporters as he stood in the rubble of a hospital destroyed during the 50-day Gaza war.

Palestinian and United Nations officials said 130,000 houses had either been demolished or damaged, largely by Israeli air strikes and shelling, in the densely populated coastal territory.

"We want more countries to come and build Gaza. Gaza suffered from previous wars," Amadi said.

At a donors' conference in Cairo in October, some two months after the latest conflict ended in an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire, Qatar said it would provide $1 billion in reconstruction assistance for Gaza.

In all, some $5.4 billion was pledged at the meeting, but little of that has reached the Gaza Strip.

Cairo — Two bombings in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, one of them a suicide attack on a police base, killed a civilian and an army officer Tuesday as an Islamist insurgency showed no let-up, officials said.

The rugged peninsula is the base of Daesh terror group's Egyptian affiliate, formerly known as Ansar Beit Al Maqdis (Partisans of Jerusalem), which has claimed the majority of attacks on the security forces in the region.

The suicide bomber rammed a vehicle packed with explosives into the police base in North Sinai's provincial capital of El Arish, killing the civilian, security and health officials said.

Two civilians and 30 police were also wounded in the attack, which came just minutes after a nighttime curfew was lifted at 6:00 am (0400 GMT).

"The bomber drove a water tanker filled with explosives into the rear gate of the base," a security official said.

"As the vehicle approached, police fired on it, detonating the explosives inside."

Interior ministry spokesman Hani Abdel Latif said the death toll could have been much higher but for the swift reaction of the guards on the gate.

"The security forces dealt with the vehicle near the checkpoint of the base which saved a lot of lives," Abdel Latif told AFP.

"The wounded policemen suffered only minor injuries from shattered glass."

In the second attack, an army captain was killed and two other soldiers wounded when a roadside bomb blew up as they pursued militants south of El Arish.

Tuesday's bombings came a day after three Egyptian soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb east of the city.

El Arish has seen repeated deadly attacks on security forces.

In January, a combined rocket and car bomb attack on a military base, a nearby police headquarters and a residential complex for army and police officers killed at least 24 people in the city, most of them soldiers.

The nighttime curfew is among a raft of security measures that have been in force in North Sinai since a late October attack on a military base near the city killed 30 soldiers.

The army has also been clearing a buffer zone along the province's border with the Gaza Strip to prevent militants infiltrating from Palestinian territory.

Militants have intensified their attacks on the security forces in the Sinai since the army overthrew Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in July 2013.

They say their campaign of violence is in retaliation for a government crackdown on Morsi's supporters that has left hundreds dead and thousands imprisoned.

The army reports daily clashes with the militants in North Sinai.

Late last year, Washington delivered 10 Apache helicopters to Egypt to boost its campaign against the Sinai militants.

CAIRO — An attack by Islamist militants on a Libyan oil-field where they beheaded security guards and kidnapped foreign workers underlines the difficulties facing UN-sponsored peace talks due to resume this week.

Libyans have become accustomed to chaos, with their country split between two rival governments each allied to heavily armed groups that have been fighting for control of the oil-producing nation since the fall of Muammar Qadhafi in 2011.

But last week’s attack on the Al Ghani oil-field in central Libya marks a new departure. The attackers did not seize it to make financial or political demands as armed groups often do.

Instead, they mounted a show of force that appeared in line with warnings that the Islamists are bent on exploiting Libya’s turmoil to extend their influence.

“They came to burn the facilities and kidnap or kill the workers and guards,” said Ali Al Hassi, a spokesman for an oil-field security force. “Then they left.”

The militants have not yet made a statement on the attack but officials have blamed Daesh, which has in the past boasted of its ability to kill soldiers or civilians in Libya.

The UN special envoy for a Libya, Bernardino Leon, said last week that Daesh militants would “stop at nothing” to strengthen their presence in the country.

The violence illustrates the challenge facing the United Nations which has been hosting talks between rival parties with the aim of forming a national unity government.

Libya is divided between the internationally recognised government, which has been based in the east since a faction called Libya Dawn seized the capital in August, reinstated the old assembly and set up a rival administration.

The UN had planned to resume talks on Wednesday but the elected parliament, which is also based in the east, asked late on Tuesday for a one-week delay to study a roadmap proposal to form a national government, a parliamentary spokesman said.

There was no immediate reaction from the UN and the Tripoli-based rival parliament.

The UN has invited moderate leaders to join the talks, which have been going on since September. But analysts see little chance of success as the country is fracturing, with small armed groups increasingly calling the shots, as in the oil-field attack.

“There are too many players — and the fighters don’t necessarily answer to their respective leaderships,” Richard Cochrane, senior analyst, MENA, at consultancy IHS Country Risk, told the Reuters Global Oil Forum.

Both governments represent loose alliances of former rebel groups who helped topple Qadhafi but have since fallen out along political and regional lines.

Libya Dawn

Libya Dawn draws support form from western cities such as Misrata, and includes Islamists, the Amazigh minority, and business people.

In the east, an umbrella of tribes, federalists campaigning for autonomy, and military figures such as Khalifa Haftar, a former Qadhafi general, dominate the scene.

Both sides have been fighting each other on several fronts, creating a vacuum exploited by militants loyal to Daesh, the group that has seized large parts of Syria and Iraq.

The militants have drawn support from Libyan jihadists who fought in Syria and returned to cities such as Derna or Sirte. While Daesh alliance seems to have split into small groups, it attracts fighters from other factions, such as Ansar Al Sharia, by conducting spectacular attacks.

A big problem for peace efforts is that neither the United Nations nor Western powers backing the talks have a presence in Libya — they evacuated their Tripoli missions in the summer for security reasons.

Having relocated to Malta or Tunis, diplomats try to stay in contact with moderate Libyan figures by phone or when they travel abroad.

But with no team on the ground, UN envoy Leon often finds himself agreeing on something during a day trip to Tripoli or Tobruk only for hardliners to torpedo it the next day.

Husni Bey, a prominent Libyan entrepreneur, blamed a few hardline figures for encouraging war. “Ninety-nine percent of us, the Libyan people, want peace and are against war, death, injury and destruction,” he said

In the east, Haftar has emerged as a new strongman, fighting his own war against Islamist militants and using his warplanes to attack civilian airports under the control of Libya Dawn, which has also carried out air strikes and tried to seize major oil ports with troops.

But his recent promotion to army commander in the east has had the effect of helping Libya Dawn in Tripoli to become more united, analysts say. And while business leaders on that side had been pushing for a quick deal, Haftar’s elevation is as unacceptable for them as it is for hardliners.

“I think talks and fighting will run as parallel tracks for some time, as happened in Somalia where years passed between a first national unity government and a modicum of stabilisation,” Mattia Toaldo, policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, told the Reuters Global Oil Forum.

CAIRO — Under its new monarch, Saudi Arabia appears to be moving to improve relations with Turkey and Qatar and soften its stance against the Muslim Brotherhood with the aim of weakening Iran. The shift could lead to pressure on its ally Egypt to reconcile with them as well.

The pressure, however, threatens to open frictions within the alliance between Egypt and Saudi Arabia, two of the Middle East's strongest Sunni countries. Under the late Saudi King Abdullah, who died in January, the two nations increased their cooperation against militants, the Brotherhood and the influence of Shiite Iran in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi — so far — has appeared to resist any reconciliation with Turkey and Qatar, the two top regional backers of Sisi's No.1 nemesis, the Muslim Brotherhood. 

Sisi rose to the presidency after, as army chief, he led the military’s 2013 ouster of Mohammed Morsi, a Brotherhood leader elected Egypt’s president a year earlier. Since the ouster, Sisi has led a fierce crackdown on Islamists, crushing the Brotherhood and branding it a terrorist organisation, while Egyptian media have depicted Turkey and Qatar as trying to destabilise Egypt by backing the group.

The new Saudi king, Salman, who rose to throne after his half-brother King Abdullah’s January 23 death, appears to view the greater threat as Iran or extremist groups like Al Qaeda and Daesh. Turkey and Qatar both could give a boost to a front against those opponents.

“The new government, the new king, may feel that the old ways simply are not working,” said Brian Downing, a Washington-based political analyst.

Both Sisi and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan were in Saudi Arabia last week, each meeting separately with King Salman and not with each other. Afterward, Erdogan told reporters that “Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Turkey — this trio — are the most important countries of the region. We all have duties to carry out for the peace, calm and welfare of the region”.

King Salman and Sisi discussed the issue of Egypt’s relations with Qatar and Turkey, according to Egyptian officials familiar with the talks. Sisi told his host that the two’s policies continue to spread violence and terror in the region. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak to the media.

“I want to tell our brothers in Saudi Arabia who are listening to us: Imagine someone is trying to destroy a nation of 90 million people. What do you think is people’s reaction?” Sisi said, visibly angry as he spoke before the visit to the Saudi-owned channel Al Arabiya. He was alluding to the Brotherhood and its foreign backers.

As part of their growing alliance, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf nations have given Egypt billions of dollars to prop up its crippled economy. Still, there have been divergences between Egypt and Saudi Arabia — most particularly over Syria. Saudi Arabia seeks the removal of Iranian-backed Syrian President Bashar Assad. That is one reason for its closing ranks with Qatar and Turkey, which both back factions fighting Assad.

Sisi, meanwhile, consistently has avoided saying whether Egypt objects to Assad remaining in power. Earlier this year, he had a very public reconciliation with Qatar, but then ties cooled once more.

The Saudi government traditionally divulges little about its plans, leaving media commentators close to its leaders the job of explaining its rationale.

The state-linked Saudi newspaper Okaz, for example, declared last week that Saudi-Egyptian relations have “entered a new turning point”. It said the kingdom is trying to “achieve closer viewpoints between its sister Egypt and other countries in the region for the good and benefit of all”.

Mohammed Al Zulfa, a former member of Saudi Arabia’s advisory Shura Council, told one Saudi paper that the kingdom wants better Arab-Turkish ties in large part because “a convergence of views [with Turkey] could reduce Iranian expansionism”.

But the price of any improvement with Turkey and Qatar would likely be an easing of the crackdown on the Brotherhood. King Abdullah took a hard line against the group, following Cairo’s footsteps and branding the 87-year-old Islamist group a “terrorist” organisation.

Soon after King Abdullah’s death, hints of a new approach appeared. Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al Faisal told the Saudi newspaper Al Jazira that the kingdom has “no problem with the Muslim Brotherhood”, only with certain members whose loyalties lie with the Brotherhood’s supreme leader.

One telling column in the Al Hayat newspaper, owned by a Saudi royal, warned that Egypt should not expect a “blank check” or ignore Riyadh’s interests. Egyptians cannot tell the Saudis not to forge closer ties with Turkey just because Ankara supports the Brotherhood, columnist Khaled Al Dekheil wrote.

“For Saudi Arabia to continue keeping Turkey at a distance, as some in Egypt would like, will not serve regional balances at this time,” Dekheil wrote. In unusually harsh criticism of Egypt in the perennially cautious Saudi media, he wrote that Cairo blew the Brotherhood issue out of proportion because of a lack of a “political and intellectual project” that Egyptians can rally around.

Sisi vehemently rejected any suggestion that relations with the Saudis have suffered since King Abdullah’s death. In a February 22 address to the nation, Sisi sought to reassure Saudi Arabia and its Gulf Arab allies of Cairo’s respect and gratitude for the financial backing. His comments appeared designed for damage control after the release of audio tapes in which Sisi and members of his inner circle purportedly mock the Gulf Arab nations and suggest Egypt is milking them for every dollar.

On one key point which he and the new Saudi leadership agree on, he warned that the entire region would be hurt if Egypt staggers.

“The instability of Egypt or its plunge into chaos... will mean the fall of the entire Arab region and will threaten the Europeans themselves for many years to come,” Sisi said.