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KCNA | Reuters
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un reacts during the long-range strategic ballistic rocket Hwasong-12 (Mars-12) test launch in this undated photo released by North Korea’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on May 15, 2017.
The suspension of $195 million prevented the funds from expiring, which they would have otherwise done at the end of September. This means that Egypt has a chance to regain them.
Nevertheless, Carriere agreed that recently escalating tensions with North Korea could have been a motivation behind the sudden turnaround.
“Egypt might be a particularly fruitful pressure point in applying pressure to North Korea,” Carriere said. “There may be other motivations, but this move would certainly be the latest in a pattern of applying pressure to North Korea.”
Egypt’s ties to North Korea date back to the 1970s, when North Korean pilots helped to train Egyptian fight pilots before its 1973 war with Israel. It is reported that North Korea later obtained its first Scud-B ballistic missiles from Egypt in 1979 or 1980, according to the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control, a non-profit research body. More recently, in 2015, the United Nations said that Egypt’s Port Said was being used by North Korean front companies and shipping agents for weapons smuggling.
However, Egypt’s ties with the U.S. are also long and substantial, and the U.S. announcement appeared to shock the Egyptian government, resulting in the immediate cancellation of a scheduled meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump’s top adviser Jared Kushner and Egypt’s Foreign minister Sameh Shoukry.
