Absence of Israeli, Syrian ambassadorial appointments sign of close coordination between president, foreign minister

Two notable absences marked the annual diplomatic postings that were announced via presidential decree on Thursday: neither Syria, nor Israel will see a new ambassador. While the absences were not totally unexpected — Egypt has pursued a cautious engagement with Syria in recent months and has left its diplomatic post in Tel Aviv empty since the end of 2024 — the fact that decisions were made for two contentious foreign policy files without a hitch, sources say, is evidence of close coordination between Foreign Minister Badr Abdel Atty and the presidency’s office. The first sign of coordination, a source in the diplomatic corps in the Foreign Ministry told Mada Masr, came with how prompt the postings were. In previous years , the announcement of diplomatic appointments had been delayed for periods of nearly three months to ensure the Foreign Ministry’s choices were compatible with the vision of the security agencies and the presidency. But this year’s postings, which were published by the Official Gazette published on Thursday and ratified by President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi were dated June 2, a few days after the customary window for the announcement between the end of April and the end of May. The small delay, the diplomatic source said, was attributed to the Eid holiday. But otherwise, the postings were on time because Abdel Atty “had reached a clear understanding with the president and the agencies, so it wasn’t delayed as had happened in previous years, when the appointments would keep going back and forth, between the presidency and the ministry and so on.” The source’s assessment of the closeness between the foreign minister and the president was consistent with accounts given by a number of Egyptian diplomats who spoke with Mada Masr over a period of almost two years, beginning with Abdel Atty’s appointment to replace Sameh Shoukry on July 3, 2024. The diplomats’ accounts all point to the existence of a smooth channel of communication between Abdel Atty and Sisi, including daily phone briefings lasting around an hour on a number of files. They said that, despite a number of setbacks marking his diplomatic career, the foreign minister has managed to convince Sisi that he is the right man, in the right place, at the right time — particularly by avoiding conflicts with the security agencies and the sovereign ministries and by keeping diplomatic energy, even if only for the sake of activity itself. “He got into the man’s mind, and he’s won his favor. In the space of two years, he’s got three ministries: the foreign ministry, the immigration ministry and the international cooperation ministry — a precedent,” said one of the diplomats. The same diplomat said that this year’s ambassadorial appointments reflect Abdel Atty’s ability to “keep things moving without conflict,” pointing to the omission of ambassadorial appointments to Damascus and Tel Aviv as evidence. He explained that Abdel Atty, backed by the relevant department in the Foreign Ministry, believes Egypt should not hesitate to approach Syria “under conditions he thinks Egypt is capable of entrenching. This clashes with the view of sovereign agencies, which insist Egypt must remain highly cautious about any engagement with Syria.” But rather than push for an upscaling of the diplomatic relations, Abdel Atty submitted a first draft of the diplomatic appointments to the presidency without an ambassador to Damascus, the source said, noting that the foreign minister had already reached a consensus to maintain the status quo with a chargé d’affaires, a position currently held by Mohamed Abdel Aziz al-Feky. The source added that the question of upgrading Egypt’s diplomatic representation in Damascus continues to rest upon a number of understandings between the two countries, including clear agreements regarding participation in Syria’s reconstruction, as well Egyptian reassurance about the ideological direction of the Syrian regime. “And this is the most important thing, because there are lots of people in the regime that still see the regime in Syria as hardline Islamist, and there are many things that must be clarified, including, for example, how the Syrian state deals with the hardline military formations on Syrian territory, as well as the allocation of senior positions in the army and intelligence services to figures primarily associated with state institutions.” In February 2012, during the rule of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry withdrew its ambassador to Damascus in protest against the violent crackdown by Bashar al-Assad’s regime against demonstrators in the first years of the Syrian revolution. Shortly before the ouster of former President Mohamed Morsi from office in June 2013, Cairo decided to sever diplomatic relations with Damascus in protest at the escalation of this crackdown. This did not last long, however, based on advice from state agencies at the time. Relations improved following Morsi’s removal from power, with the new ruling order in Egypt taking a clear position in the following weeks to reject the Arab Spring protests and to support the established militaries of other countries. According to an Egyptian diplomat who had previously worked in Damascus before the effective collapse of the Assad regime in December 2024, relations improved greatly in 2023 with the beginning of Assad’s reintegration into the Arab regional order. “Egypt was prepared to increase diplomatic representation after certain understandings with Saudi Arabia and the United States,” the diplomat said, given the two countries’ continued caution toward the Assad regime. Matters then moved backward to some degree after Assad’s fall and the assumption of power in Syria by figures affiliated with the militant group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the same diplomat said, adding that the new leadership in Damascus would need to reassure Cairo about the status of key figures in the new government. After Syrian officials proposed to their Egyptian counterparts last year to move to a new stage by restoring diplomatic relations to ambassadorial level, Damascus proceeded to nominate an ambassador to Cairo. The proposed ambassador’s Islamist background prompted Cairo to respond that it did not welcome the nomination, without discussing an alternative, on the grounds that the matter depended on the Syrian regime and its understanding of what Egypt could accept. In a brief exchange in Cyprus at the close of April, the Syrian president expressed understanding of the Egyptian rejection, which was met with readiness from Sisi to examine an alternative if one were nominated, according to a source who previously spoke to Mada Masr. In addition to the absence of an ambassador in Damascus, the ambassadorial appointments issued on Thursday also did not include the appointment of an ambassador to Tel Aviv. The post has been officially vacant since October 2024, months after it was vacated when ambassador Khaled Azmy left Tel Aviv, without an official announcement or the customary official farewell procedures in accordance with diplomatic custom. Azmy had begun his mission at the Egyptian embassy in Tel Aviv in November 2018 , with his four-year tenure being extended by a year twice. According to sources within the Foreign Ministry, along with other political sources close to the sovereign agencies, the absence of a nomination for an Egyptian ambassador to Israel is an indication of the ongoing tension between the two countries. The sources differed, however, in their assessment of the level and the cause of this tension. Some viewed it as a “superficial matter” that has not resulted in the suspension of any form of cooperation between the two countries, including the regular meetings held at various levels. They argued that the tension is mainly linked to Israel’s continued war on Gaza since 2023 : The near-total destruction of Gaza, the deaths of nearly 80,000 people or even the ceasefire agreement announced last October through Egyptian, Qatari and American mediation. On Thursday, the official Egyptian delegation at the International Labour Conference in Geneva withdrew from the hall as the Israeli representative began to speak, along with other Arab delegations. This was a part of a series of similar protest actions against Israel’s participation in the conference, where the Egyptian delegation, headed by Labor Minister Hassan Raddad, held a campaign to secure Palestinian participation in the work of the International Labour Organization. Other diplomatic and political sources, however, argued that the tension between Israel and Egypt is by no means merely superficial. They said these tensions go beyond the Palestinian issue into multiple dimensions, including regional arrangements that Israel is seeking to establish with new regional allies, foremost among them the United Arab Emirates. These arrangements go beyond the Palestinian file to include East Africa, the Horn of Africa, the Nile Basin region as well as the eastern Mediterranean region. The absence of an Egyptian nomination in Tel Aviv is mirrored by the Israeli embassy in Cairo remaining largely empty, according to the diplomatic sources, after Amira Oron was forced to end her tenure as ambassador to Egypt abruptly, as part of the Israeli government’s reduction of its diplomatic representation at several of its embassies, following a surge of anger after several weeks of genocidal war in Gaza. Cairo then suspended, in the spring of 2025, its approval of Israel’s nomination of a new ambassador. Tel Aviv stalled its efforts to move past the issue, without subsequently attempting to seriously revive the matter. One Egyptian diplomatic source, speaking two days before the ambassadorial appointments were public, said that sensitive sectors of the state have become increasingly concerned about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s pursuit of regional expansion. This, he added, could open the door for the whole region to be in sustained regional tension with inevitable repercussions for Egypt. The same source stressed that Cairo has absolutely no intention of entering a political confrontation with Israel “for very many reasons:” some political, some economic and some security-related. “In the end, the issue of an Egyptian ambassador to Israel is a protocol matter, because relations between the two countries, whether at a bilateral level or the Palestinian file, or even with regard to gas cooperation or other areas, are conducted through sovereign agencies” said the source. “But it is certainly the case that the lack of inclusion of an ambassador in the appointments is a message of some kind.” In addition to the two vacant embassies, the appointments announced on Thursday included the nomination of Mohamed al-Molla as ambassador to Washington, succeeding Moataz Zohran. The source in the diplomatic corps noted that the change is consistent with the trend of not extending ambassadors beyond their four-year terms except in the narrowest of circumstances, in contrast to previous years when some ambassadors’ terms were extended by up to three years. Continuing the trend of appointing presidential spokespersons to the Italian capital, the new round of appointments also nominated current spokesperson Mohamed al-Shennawy as ambassador in Rome, succeeding former spokesperson Bassem Rady. Current Foreign Ministry spokesperson Tamim Khalaf was nominated as ambassador to Lebanon, succeeding Alaa Moussa. Yasser Sorour, the current deputy foreign minister for Sudanese affairs who previously handled the Grant Ethiopian Renaissance Dam file, was nominated as ambassador to Khartoum. Hatem Abdel Qader was nominated as ambassador to Saudi Arabia and non-resident ambassador to Yemen, while Khaled Azmy, the former ambassador to Israel was nominated as ambassador to Canada, succeeding former Foreign Ministry spokesperson Ahmed Hafez. Away from the diplomatic positings, the source in the diplomatic corps told Mada Masr that the coming weeks are expected to reveal moves to extend the age of retirement in the diplomatic service from 60 to 65. He said the project had been “proposed several years ago, but [former Foreign Minister] Sameh Shokry had put it on hold because he wanted to push some people out of the ministry, believing that they were linked to the January 25 revolution in some way, but there was nothing incriminating against them to move them from the Foreign Ministry to other ministries, as happened to others.” Under former Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry’s leadership, the Foreign Ministry in 2017 transferred a number of diplomats into the larger state bureaucracy, moving them to other ministries and even transferring some into governors’ offices. This was punishment for their clear support of the January 25 revolution and the subsequent democratic transition, according to what sources told Mada Masr at the time. The sources added that others pre-empted their removal by seeking early retirement, while another group was sidelined by being sent to a politically inactive department. Meanwhile, some, despite their competence, were excluded from diplomatic postings until they reached retirement age. “It’s over. The matter is finished,” the diplomatic corps source said. “The talk today is about extending the retirement age to 65 and that is not just the trend in the Foreign Ministry alone, but also of other ministries.” The post Absence of Israeli, Syrian ambassadorial appointments sign of close coordination between president, foreign minister first appeared on Mada Masr .