December 31, 2020 at 7:30 am
For the first time in about six years, an Egyptian delegation visited Tripoli, Libya, in an attempt to improve relations between Egypt and the Government of National Accord (GNA) – Libya s only United Nations (UN)-recognised government in the war-torn country. The two-day visit focused on technical issues like the reopening of the Egyptian embassy in Tripoli, which closed in 2014, and the possibility of allowing Libyan Airlines to land in Cairo instead of Alexandria, where all Libyan flights have been landing for over seven years.
Such a visit is a huge breakthrough for Cairo and Tripoli, which have been on opposite sides since President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi came to power seven years ago.
joining us now is reva bell. and the author of how to be secular. reva, i want to start with you. david i go anyway shus writing in the washington post had an interesting take on what was going behind the protests particularly in libya and egypt. he wrote what s happen inning cairo and benghazi is a case of political opportunism by salafist islamic extrooemists who are unhappy with the success that more moderate islamist and secular in egypt and libya have had in building political support. do you agree with that statement? absolutely. there s a lot of intraislamic competition like the muslim brotherhood trying to take leadership in the arab world and coming to the political rise in