In a joint press conference on Sunday, Egypt’s Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry and his Saudi counterpart Adel al-Jubeir reiterated the compatibility of their stances towards the crisis in Syria. “There has not been [any] chasm before. Our [stances] are compatible,” Shoukry told reporters referring to alleged differences in the two countries’ policies on Syria. Jubeir, on his part, said that Egypt and Saudi Arabia “haven’t reached an agreement yet,” but reaffirmed what he described as the “congruent stances” of the two countries regarding the issue of Syria. Since the beginning of the Syrian conflict, Saudi Arabia has insisted on Syrian president Bashar al-Assad stepping down as a precondition for any talks on a potential political solution to the four-year civil war. However, Cairo’s stance on Syria has shifted with each of its regimes ever since the revolt that toppled former strongman Hosni Mubarak in 2011. During the 2011-2012 military rule, Egypt remained utterly silent on the diplomatic front. However, after Mohamed Morsi gained power in the country’s first democratic elections in 2012, Cairo started severing diplomatic ties with Damascus as Morsi considered it a moral obligation that Assad steps down. At that…
