CAIRO: US Vice President Mike Pence met Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on Saturday as he began a delayed Middle East tour overshadowed by Arab anger over Washington’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

Controversy over President Donald Trump’s decision to move the American embassy in Israel to Jerusalem had led to the cancellation of a number of planned meetings ahead of the trip originally scheduled for December.

While the deadly protests that erupted at the time have subsided, concerns are mounting over the future of the UN aid agency for Palestinians after Washington froze tens of millions of dollars of funding.

The Palestinian leadership, already furious over the Jerusalem decision, has denounced the US administration and had already refused to meet Pence in December.

A coalition of Arab parties in the Israeli parliament said on Saturday it would boycott a speech by Pence on Monday, calling him “dangerous and messianic”. Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist movement that runs the Gaza Strip, said that the vice president was “not welcome” in the region.

Published in Dawn, January 21st, 2018