Illustrative image. (Egyptian Ministry of Defense)
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi on October 17 called for an emergency parliamentary session to authorise a possible Egyptian intervention to defend Saudi Arabia if requested by the kingdom.
“I call on parliament to convene an emergency session to authorise us to take action to intervene in defence of Saudi Arabia, if we are asked to do so,” El-Sisi said at a graduation ceremony for military academy and college cadets.
“This move and this defence require approval from the Egyptian parliament,” he noted, stressing that Egypt was not seeking to join the war against Yemen’s Houthis.
“I am not speaking about attacking or waging war. We are seeking only to defend,” the Egyptian president added.
Egypt is the latest country to publicly signal support for Saudi Arabia as the kingdom faces escalating missile and drone attacks by the Houthis, who control much of Yemen.
El-Sisi said Cairo would take the necessary measures to protect Saudi Arabia, adding that it was “absolutely unacceptable” for the kingdom’s security and stability to be undermined.
Saudi Arabia has secured defensive military support from Pakistan and Turkey through the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement, which the three countries agreed to activate on October 5. More recently, the kingdom also received defensive support from the United Kingdom and France.
The United States, for its part, has been providing more substantial military support to Saudi Arabia, including intelligence sharing, operational planning and assistance identifying Houthi targets, as well as weapons and air-defence systems.
Still, Riyadh has so far failed to secure a publicly announced commitment from its allies to directly join its offensive against the Houthis inside Yemen.
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