Sisi asks Egypt’s parliament for emergency mandate to defend Saudi Arabia

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi said Egypt is ready to take any action to protect and defend Saudi Arabia if asked, and called on parliament to hold an emergency session to authorize him, stressing that any move would be “for defense, not attack.”

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi said on Saturday that Egypt is ready to take any action to protect and defend Saudi Arabia, in line with the directives of King Salman bin Abdulaziz and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. He spoke at a graduation ceremony for new classes of the Egyptian Military Academy in the New Administrative Capital.

“It is unthinkable that we would allow the security and stability of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to be harmed,” Sisi said, adding: “We stand firmly and with full support to protect and defend the territory of our brothers in the Gulf.”

Call for an emergency session

The Saudi capital Riyadh

Sisi called on the House of Representatives to convene an emergency session to authorize him to take the necessary measures to defend Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states if they request it from Egypt. “Egypt will not fight or attack; we will only defend Saudi Arabia,” he said, stressing that the mandate is “for defense, not attack.”

Egypt’s constitution requires parliamentary approval to send the armed forces on combat missions abroad. Parliament last granted such a mandate in 2020, when it approved a possible military intervention in Libya.

Thanks to the Gulf

Sisi recalled that Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait supplied Egypt with oil, gas, cooking gas and wheat in 2013, saying Egypt would not have known what to do without that support. He ordered the armed forces to give a military salute to the Gulf brothers and said Egypt is not seeking a role but acting out of responsibility toward its brothers.

The remarks came after Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty said Egypt was ready to answer any Saudi request to protect the kingdom’s territory. The Houthis struck King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh on Oct. 10 and 11, causing deaths and injuries, and the U.N. Security Council condemned the attacks in a presidential statement.

Two days earlier, Sisi said the security of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf is directly linked to Egypt’s national security. At a meeting in Cairo last month, Sisi and the Saudi crown prince rejected attacks threatening the kingdom’s sovereignty and stressed securing navigation in the Strait of Hormuz, Bab al-Mandab and the Red Sea.

Sisi asks Egypt’s parliament for emergency mandate to defend Saudi Arabia