Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on Saturday opened a strategic naval base on the Mediterranean to “secure shipping companies,” the presidency said.
“It is the latest Egyptian military base on the Mediterranean and will focus on securing the northern and western front of the country,” the Egyptian presidency said in a statement.
The ceremony was attended by the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, and by the President of the Libyan Presidential Council, Mohamed al-Menfi.
The base is located about 255 kilometers west of Alexandria, towards the border with Libya, a country where both Egypt and the United Arab Emirates have played an important military role and supported the warlord and putschist general Khalifa Haftar, who had tried to take the capital Tripoli from the former legitimate and UN -supported government.
In April, Egyptian Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouli traveled to Libya, where he held talks with caretaker Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah in a new sign of warming ties between Cairo and Tripoli.
Dbeibah visited Egypt in February on his first official trip abroad after the election.
In April, Dbeibah also visited Abu Dhabi, where he was warmly greeted by Sheikh Mohammed, who expressed support for the new Libyan administration.
Sisi and his guests witnessed military maneuvers with several ships, attack helicopters and fighter jets.
The state-run newspaper Akhbar Al-Youm reported that the new Egyptian base contains a runway and a 1,000-meter-long jetty.
The base was named “July 3” after the day eight years ago when Sisi led President Mohamed Morsi’s military expulsion.
Egypt has three other naval bases in the Mediterranean and one in the Red Sea.
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