Relations between Egypt and Saudi Arabia Continue to Sour

The latest conflict among the ever-lengthening list of Middle Eastern conflicts to sour rapidly is the tension between Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Once staunch allies, contracts worth more than $22.6 billion were signed when Saudi King Salman visited Egypt last April. But by the fall, the diplomatic thermometer had plunged. Prior to Wednesday’s announcement that three Egyptian realtors had backed out of plans to build tens of thousands of housing units in Saudi Arabia, officials in Cairo telling news agencies that the reason was tension between the two nations. The Saudis have not commented. But in October, state-owned oil giant Aramco dropped Egypt from its customer list without any comment about why. While the Reuters news agency reports denials from both governments that a problem exists, deep disagreement is known to exist between Russia and Saudi Arabia on issues about the Syrian civil war. Riyadh was also unhappy when an Egyptian court pulled the rug out from under Cairo’s transfer of two islands in the Red Sea to the Saudis.