Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi declares readiness to form a joint Arab military force

Egypt's President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi during Arab League summit
(Image: Yahoo News)

At the closing session of an Arab League summit held in Egyptian city of Sharm El-Sheikh Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi declared that member-states agreed in principle to create a joint military force aimed to deal with the regional security issues. According to the statements of the session membership in this joint military force will be voluntary.

In addition to that special team, led by the high level Arab generals and military professionals, will be created to study means of forming this joint force and its functioning in the region as well, what becomes much more important considering the fact of growing insecurity and danger of numerous military conflicts in Libya, Syria, Yemen, Iraq and other countries as well.

Egypt’s leader El-Sisi also declared readiness of Egypt to continue cooperation with Arab countries regarding other issues and spheres of interest as well.

It’s worth mentioning also that many members of the summit stressed an importance of a unified response to the growing security threats in the regions. Thus, Arab League Secretary General Nabil El-Araby opened the session telling about a great need to confront such threats by means of forming a joint force. Speaking about it, Nabil El-Araby called for the joint military, societal and also economic efforts of the Arab states in order to face these threats and dangers, including the threats of the civil wars ongoing in Libya, Iraq, Syria and Yemen.

Danger of Islamist radical groups advance and growing powers was also emphasized during the Arab League summit this year. Thus, Egypt suffers from Islamist extremism and terrorism since ouster of Mohamed Morsi, Libya is torn by civil war and became another haven for the ISIS militants, civil war continues also in Iraq and Syria, together with growing power of ISIS. Recent developments in the Gulf state of Yemen also proved the dangers of the extremist militants advance.

It was also stated during the Arab Leagues session that that the current Saudi Arabia-led military offensive in Yemen was necessary in order to stop rising power of Shia Houthi militants in Yemen and prevent the chaos in the country and in the region.

“We will continue to fight the Houthis in Yemen until they surrender and hand over their weapons,” stated Nabil El-Araby talking about Saudi-led military operation in Yemen and the necessity of forming a joint military force of Arab states.

Thus, the Arab states which are the members of Arab League agreed to form such a unified military force in order to preserve security in the region, and the negotiations regarding the details are to start in the nearest future.