Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s latest meeting with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi this week came at a highly sensitive moment for both countries. Mere days before Tuesday’s meeting, Iran-aligned Houthi rebels seized Yemen’s Red Sea coast, gaining significant control over the Bab al-Mandeb strait, the southern gateway to the Suez Canal. This precipitated a Saudi air campaign over Yemen and repeated attacks by the Houthis on the kingdom’s oil infrastructure.
Analysts say Riyadh is looking for help to protect the kingdom and Red Sea shipping, and that Egypt, whose Suez Canal revenue depends on the same traffic, is an obvious partner. The deepening bilateral relationship carries significant implications for the region, from the conflicts in Yemen and Sudan to Egypt’s close ties with the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia’s new defence pact with Turkiye and Pakistan. Abdel Monem Said, a member of Egypt’s Senate who is close to decision-making circles in Cairo, told Al Jazeera the visit had political, economic, strategic and military dimensions.
He said it came as Iran escalated regional conflicts through what he called its proxies, chief among them the Houthis. Their advance directly threatened Egypt’s economy and the Suez Canal, he said. Said stressed the need for joint strategic and military thinking between Egypt and Saudi Arabia that would act as a strong deterrent against Iran-backed groups from Iraq to Yemen.
He added that Egypt is eager to prevent Iran and its allies from imposing control over the region, especially over maritime traffic in the Red Sea, given the direct repercussions this has for the Suez Canal. Andreas Krieg, a senior lecturer at King’s College London, said Cairo increasingly sees one continuous security space stretching from the Suez Canal to Bab al-Mandeb. If that southern gateway becomes unreliable, he said, Egypt stands to lose shipping, hard currency and strategic leverage.
In the lead-up to the meeting, the chairman of the Arab Affairs Committee in Egypt’s House of Representatives, Mohamed Salah Abu Hemila, told Al Jazeera that the Saudi crown prince’s visit may produce a new roadmap for political and strategic cooperation on a number of Arab and regional issues. The alliance between the two nations would serve as the cornerstone for building a new Arab order — more robust, cohesive, and capable of safeguarding its interests and defending its just causes, he said. The foremost issues would be Red Sea security and freedom of international navigation, but they would also include the Palestinian cause and the situations in Yemen, Libya and Sudan.
A statement released by el-Sisi’s office after the meeting also affirmed that “relations between Egypt and Saudi Arabia can only be exemplary within the Arab framework,” and linked Egyptian and Gulf security. Tarek Fahmy, professor of international relations at Cairo University, told Al Jazeera that Saudi Arabia is increasingly acting within an Arab framework after the United States’s reaction to the Houthi escalations fell short of what the kingdom expected. Reports suggest that Saudi Arabia asked the Trump administration for military help in combatting the Iran-backed group, but that Trump refused.
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