Egyptian Chronicles: Our Role in The North Korean Crisis

In 1960s right after the six days war believe it or not despite our bad relations with the United States we were playing role in Vietnam , yes the Americans asked us to use our Eastern alliance to convince Ho Chi Minh to accept the cease fire proposal which he refused , the more American soldiers on the land killed , the more he would win ; it was his country and land and they were the invaders “Could not the Arabs learn from the Vietnam War example whether politically or militarily !!??”

Anyhow now it seems that Egypt has some influence and can play some role in East Asia specifically in the North Korean Crisis , yes in the North Korean crisis and if you are surprised please do not be. Our relations with North Korea are good more than you can imagine despite we are no longer a socialist country according to our latest constitution amendments. After all not Pro-West countries publish press releases from North Korea’s embassy in its official newspapers and its ministry of foreign affairs send their delegations there.

Egypt’s good relations with North Korea are simply related ironically to its missiles programs regardless of the official denial or rather the official silence. But actually there is no smoke without fire our missiles cooperation goes back to the 1976 during President Sadat's era as part of diversifying our arms sources policy. “Which I hope that it has been followed up till now”. Not to mention that every now and then when American and Israeli administrations disagree badly with Mubarak , their press speak about the North Korean missiles in Egypt which became like our famous secret airport station !!!

Now from a week ago Philip Goldberg, a senior US state department official had travelled to the Middle East to meet with officials in UAE and Egypt in order to ensure that sanctions imposed on the communist country are implemented especially after its long rang missiles tests. Goldberg is the man who makes sure that the allies of the US in the free world are implementing the sanctions of the UN. I believe Egypt and UAE are still importing arms from North Korea because other than that what shall we import from there !?? I do not think we import cartoons !!!!

The UAE is the biggest importer of weapons in the Middle East and surely it imports arms from North Korea even if it were not for local use but for trade and Egypt as mentioned above has historical role in the Korean missiles program which I am not sorry for after all I am getting sick of buying old used arms and we have learnt lots of lessons because of this in 1967 and 1973. Anyhow I wonder if both countries will listen to Goldberg and give to N.Korea a cold shoulder but I doubt it because not only them but most of the countries with relations like ours with N.Korea know very well that they are breaking the sanctions and they do not really give a damn for that.