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The foreign minister of the United Arab Emirates, Anwar Gargash, has denied that the former Egyptian prime minister Ahmed Shafiq is being prevented from travelling to Cairo.
Mr Shafiq, who’s said he’s intending to stand as a candidate in the next Egyptian presidential election, appeared on Al Jazeera television to say he was being barred from leaving.
He told news agency AFP:
“I was surprised that I was banned from leaving the brotherly nation of the United Arab Emirates, for reasons I do not understand. I was intending to carry out a tour among the Egyptian diaspora before returning to my country in the next few days.”
But the UAE minister denied this, saying his country had been hosting Mr Shafiq after he left Egypt, despite “strong reservations about some of his positions”.
