Sent to defuse tensions, Jean-Yves Le Drian sought to convey an emollient message at the end of the meeting.
Cairo:
French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian was in Egypt on Sunday where he sought to ease tensions with the Arab world, after the fury surrounding the republication of the cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.
Le Drian met with President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry and Ahmed al-Tayeb, the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, Egypt’s highest Muslim authority, speaking of “deep respect” for his country for Islam.
Le Drian’s long-awaited meeting with Tayeb, head of Al-Azhar – considered the first religious institution of Sunni Muslims – touched on French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo’s decision in September to reprint the cartoons.
Last month, Tayeb denounced French President Emmanuel Macron’s comments on “Islamist separatism” as “racist” and disseminating “hate speech”.
Macron’s remarks follow a suspected Islamist extremist beheading a schoolteacher in a Paris suburb in October after showing the cartoons to students during a free speech class.
Tayeb’s position did not budge on Sunday as he reiterated his defense of the sanctity of Islam. Representations of the Prophet are strictly prohibited in Islam.
“Insulting our Prophet is totally unacceptable and we will prosecute anyone who does not respect our honorable Prophet in international courts, even if we spend the rest of our lives solely on this issue,” he said forcefully in a statement released by Al-Azhar.
Sent to defuse tensions, Le Drian sought to convey an emollient message at the end of the meeting.
“I noted many points of convergence in our respective analyzes,” he told reporters. “The Grand Imam proposed that we work together for common convergence … because together we must fight against fanaticism.”
– “ A deep respect for Islam ” –
At a press conference alongside Egyptian Foreign Minister Shoukry earlier Sunday, Le Drian also adopted a conciliatory tone.
“I underlined and underlined here the deep respect that we have for Islam”, declared the French minister.
“What we are fighting is terrorism, it is the hijacking of religion, it is extremism”, he added, specifying that he came “to explain, if necessary, what fight, and at the same time the fight for the respect of the freedom of belief “.
Protests erupted in several Muslim-majority countries after Macron defended the right to publish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, seen by many as an insult and an attack on Islam.
Sisi himself had weighed in on the controversy last month, claiming that “to insult the prophets is to underestimate the religious beliefs of many people.”
Le Drian’s visit also included a discussion on conflict-affected Egypt’s western neighbor Libya.
“Developments in recent weeks are going in the right direction,” he said, referring to a ceasefire agreement and negotiations between opposing parties, including the latest round of peace talks. between rival administrations held in Morocco.
He said France and Egypt were on the same wavelength in calling for the immediate withdrawal of foreign mercenaries from Libya and respecting a United Nations arms embargo.
Le Drian will travel to Morocco for meetings with officials of the kingdom on Monday.
Asked about political prisoners held in Egyptian prisons, Shoukry said: “there is no arbitrary detention, there is only detention according to law”.
Rights groups estimate that Egypt has some 60,000 political detainees, including Palestinian-Egyptian activist Ramy Shaath, husband of Frenchwoman Céline Lebrun.
(Except for the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is posted from a syndicated feed.)
