Cablegate: Egypt Accepts Request to Replace Infantry With

VZCZCXRO7526
PP RUEHGI RUEHMA RUEHROV
DE RUEHEG #1213 1641242
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 121242Z JUN 08
FM AMEMBASSY CAIRO
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 9539
INFO RUCNFUR/DARFUR COLLECTIVE
RUCNDT/USMISSION USUN NEW YORK 0211

UNCLAS CAIRO 001213

SIPDIS
SENSITIVE

DEPARTMENT FOR IO/PSC, NEA/ELA, AF/SPG

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PREL KPKO UNSC EG SU
SUBJECT: EGYPT ACCEPTS REQUEST TO REPLACE INFANTRY WITH
ENGINEERS IN UNAMID

REF: A. CAIRO 1086
B. SECSTATE 55232

Sensitive but unclassified, not for Internet distribution.

1. (SBU) MFA Counselor for UN Affairs Yasser Naggar told us
on June 12 that, later that same day, the MFA would instruct
its delegation in New York to accept the UN DPKO's request to
replace one of four companies in Egypt's second infantry
battalion for the UN/AU Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) with an
engineering company. The engineering company would deploy
with the three infantry companies for one year, he said,
after which it would be replaced by the previously scheduled
fourth infantry company. Naggar explained that the GOE had
already responded to the UN that it was unwilling to
temporarily transfer engineers to UNAMID from Egypt's UN
Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) contingent (reftels) due to its
commitments to other African nations against "cross
borrowing" from active peacekeeping missions. Subsequently,
the UN requested that Egypt instead replace a number of the
infantry troops planned for Egypt's second of two infantry
battalions with engineers, which the Egyptian MOD had
originally opposed. The MOD eventually reversed its decision
and approved this plan, Naggar said.

2. (SBU) Naggar launched into a tirade on the GOE's
frustration with the UN DPKO over UNAMID, saying "they had no
plan and still have no plan" to ensure effective deployment
of more than 30,000 troops. He complained that "they
constantly changed their minds" on where the Egyptian
contingent was to deploy, and that the UN had not adequately
secured Egyptian military equipment sent to Darfur. Reading
from notes of an MFA-MOD meeting, he said that military
equipment sent from Cairo had been left unsecured in a
storage location near Port Sudan and had subsequently been
damaged (NFI). Naggar also registered frustration that, with
the departure from post of an Egyptian Deputy Head of Sector,
Egypt - a large contributor to UNAMID - no longer had any
high-ranking officials in the UNAMID command structure.

3. (SBU) Naggar also complained that it was not proper for
the UN to ask governments - particularly the U.S. and U.K. -
to demarche Egypt on its behalf. Separately on June 12, UK
poloff Martin Hetherington told us that Naggar had made the
same points to him in a meeting to discuss Egypt's
engineering contribution the previous day, and had been even
more vehement in his criticism of the UN DPKO.
SCOBEY

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