India has invited Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi to be the Chief Guest at Republic Day on January 26, 2023 as a part of New Delhi’s efforts to reinforce its political and army ties with Cairo. The invitation to Egyptian President El Sisi is likewise being visible as India’s outreach withinside the African continent, which is likewise second biggest financial system in Africa. This yr, each international locations celebrated the seventy fifth anniversary of diplomatic relations.
Rolling out the pink carpet for President Sisi approach Delhi-Cairo ties will see unique interest withinside the coming few months and years. Both the External Affairs Minister Dr S Jaishankar and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh visited the u . s . a . in advance this yr. During their visits, each the ministers met the Egyptian President, with Jaishankar handing out a “private message” of PM Modi to him.
The go to of Defence Minister Rajnath Singh to Cairo in September become visible as a tremendous gesture, as each aspects stepped up army engagements. During the go to, he held bilateral talks together along with his Egyptian counterpart General Mohamed Zaki and an MoU in Defense area become signed as each aspects agreed to attention on joint training, defence coproduction and preservation of equipment. Egypt is asking to shop for India’s Tejas fighter jets.
The u . s . a . become additionally invited to the India-Africa Defence Dialogue and IOR Defence Ministers’ Conclave that happened at the sidelines of the twelfth DefExpo in Gandhinagar, Gujarat in October. There has been one in all near cooperation among Indian and Egyptian Air Forces, with efforts at at the same time growing a fighter plane withinside the Sixties. IAF pilots additionally educated Egyptian pilots from the Sixties till 1984. Egypt frequently affords transit centers to IAF and Indian Navy plane ferrying to/ from Russia, Europe and the USA.
President Sisi paid an legit go to to India in September 2016. Prime Minister Modi met Sisi for the duration of the Third India-Africa Forum Summit in New Delhi in October 2015. That equal yr, each leaders had additionally met at the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
The North African u . s . a . is likewise a number of the 9 international locations invited with the aid of using India for the G20 summit with a view to be hosted in New Delhi in September 2023. This is the second one time that the Modi authorities has invited a pacesetter from an African state for Republic Day. India has been eager to growth ties with Africa, and subsequent yr may want to see the India-Africa summit as well, the ultimate of which happened in 2015.
Since 2014, while PM Modi took charge, India has prolonged invitations to US President Barack Obama (2015), French President Francois Hollande (2016), UAE’s Mohammed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan (2017), all of the ASEAN Leaders (2018), South Africa’s Cyril Ramaphosa (2019), Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro (2020).
The ultimate years—2021, and 2022— had no republic day visitors due to the Covid pandemic. India become eager to ask all of the Central Asian leaders this yr, however it couldn’t materialise because of Covid. In 2021, UK’s then PM Boris Johnson become invited because the guest, however at that time, Britain become grappling with the Covid crisis. This yr’s republic day can be presided over with the aid of using new Indian President Draupadi Murmu.
Egypt has in no way been invited to India’s Republic Day up to now because the first Republic Day birthday party commenced in 1950. India has invited the most quantity of Republic Day visitors from Asian international locations (36), accompanied with the aid of using Europe (24), Africa (11), South Africa (6), North America (2) and Oceania (1).
Egypt has historically been one in all India’s maximum essential buying and selling companions withinside the African continent. Despite the pandemic, the quantity of exchange declined handiest marginally to US $ 4.five billion in 2019-20 and to US $ 4.15 billion in 2020-21. Amid the Russia-Ukraine conflict, India despatched a wheat consignment to the u . s . a ..
Before the conflict, Egypt used to import nearly eighty according to cent of its wheat substances from Russia and Ukraine. In April this yr, the Egyptian Cabinet introduced the inclusion of India withinside the listing of authorised international locations that could deliver wheat to Egypt, therefore finishing a protracted pending non-tariff barrier.