'Is Egypt on the way to Japan?' How Blair repaired UK-Egypt ties with 1998 trip
Tony Blair visited Egypt in early 1998 to help ease ties between the two countries after the British prime minister had inadvertently offended President Hosni Mubarak almost a year earlier, according to documents newly released by the British government.
Files covering the years 1998 to 2000 released to Britain's National Archives on Thursday show Blair decided to make the visit after Mubarak felt snubbed following a failure to set up a call when he rang Blair to offer his congratulations on his 1997 election victory.
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“The lack of a response so far to Mubarak’s attempted telephone call of congratulations seems to have had a corrosive effect on our relations with Egypt,” a senior official in Britain's Foreign Office wrote in a memorandum dated 6 November 1997.
Blair then floated the idea of visiting Cairo on the way to Japan for trade talks in January 1998 to placate Mubarak, according to a report in the National.
“Why did this happen?” he wrote in the margins of the memorandum. “Speak to me. Is Egypt on the way to Japan?”
The documents show Blair and Mubarak spoke by telephone 11 days after the memorandum was circulated, in response to the Luxor massacre.
Sixty-two people, mostly tourists, were killed on 17 November 1997 at Deir el-Bahari, an archaeological site and major tourist attraction across the Nile from Luxor.
Egyptians 'delighted'
Ahead of Blair's meeting with Mubarak in April 1998, the prime minister was warned in a briefing note from the embassy in Cairo that Egypt had released a list of 14 people wanted over the Luxor attack, including three it said were residents in the UK.
The note added that Mubarak was “neuralgic” about those said to be in the UK.
“He [Mubarak] has asked his officials for a full brief and he will give the Prime Minister [politely] a hard time,” said the note preparing Blair for the visit.
“He is especially indignant that people found guilty here of trying to kill senior politicians can operate and speak freely in Britain.
“Mr Blair can... point to intelligence co-operation, and the newly agreed package of counter-terrorist training worth over £1 million over two years.”
“The Egyptians were tending to feel that we were not interested,” Britain's ambassador wrote after the trip. “They have been delighted to find this is not so."
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