The Prince of Wales has held bilateral talks with Egypt’s president as his two-day tour of the Middle East country began.
Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall arrived from Jordan and were whisked in a motorcade to the Al-Ittihadiya Palace – a former colonial luxury hotel – to meet the Egyptian leader Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and the First Lady Entissar Amer.
With Egypt due to take over the presidency of the next UN climate change conference – Cop27 – it is likely environmental issues were part of the discussions.
The Egyptian leader is a retired field marshal who led the military’s overthrow of Egypt’s first democratically elected head of state, Islamist president Mohamed Morsi, in 2013, following mass protests against his rule.
In a televised announcement the president, then an army general, told the nation Mr Morsi had been removed from office and had failed to fulfil “the hope for a national consensus”.
The Egyptian leader – who former US president Donald Trump once reportedly called “my favourite dictator” – has made maintaining stability and order in Egypt a priority.
Later, Charles visited the Al-Azhar Mosque in Cairo and urged young people studying at the religious institution to remember all “we have in common, not what divides us”.
During the tour the prince met a group of students learning English at the mosque, with young men and women arranged in small groups to speak to him.
Stopping to talk to a second group, he wondered: “Are you actually able to sit down with representatives from other faiths for conversation? Learning a bit from each other?”
The prince also attended a private interfaith reception with the Grand Imam, Sheikh Ahmed El-Tayeb, accompanied by the Archbishop of the Anglican Province of Alexandria, Dr Samy Fawzy.
The royal couple last visited the mosque in 2006, when Charles received an honorary doctorate from Al-Azhar University, which is considered the foremost Islamic institution in the Sunni Muslim world.
Founded in 970, the Al-Azhar Mosque is one of Cairo’s earliest and considered an architectural wonder, while its university is said to be the second-oldest seat of learning in the world.
