Cairo: Egypt plans to build a town to be named after Shaikh Mohammad Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the Abu Dhabi Crown Prince and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, and a university in honour of the late King Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz of Saudi Arabia, state media reported on Sunday, in gestures of appreciation for the two allied countries.
President Abdul Fattah Al Sissi said that President His Highness Shaikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan has made a donation for establishing a residential community in Egypt bearing his name. “In appreciation of their efforts and in a sign of gratitude, we’ll build a similar community bearing the name of Shaikh Mohammad Bin Zayed with Egyptian money,” the online edition of semi-official Al Ahram newspaper quoted the Egyptian leader as saying.
The new town will be constructed by the army. Its exact location was not immediately clear.
The UAE and Saudi Arabia have been extending staunch diplomatic and financial backing to Egypt since the army deposed Islamist president Mohammad Mursi of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Like Egypt, the UAE and Saudi Arabia have listed the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organisation.
Al Sissi also ordered the army to build a university in Egypt’s Sinai peninsula to be named after King Abdullah, who died last week. Construction work for the new institution will take a year, according to Maj. Gen. Emad Al Alfi, the chief of the army’s engineering branch.
Following Al Sissi’s win in the presidential election last May, King Abdullah had proposed holding an international economic conference to revitalise the Egyptian economy hammered by four years of street and political turmoil. Egypt has said the conference will be held in March in the Red Sea resort town of Sharm Al Shaikh.
