Cairo: Egyptian President Abdul Fattah Al Sissi will arrive on Sunday in Saudi Arabia, state media said, in a gesture of solidarity with one of Cairo’s staunchest allies in the region.
Weeks after taking office in June, Al Sissi held brief talks with Saudi King Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz at Cairo airport.
“President Al Sissi will discuss with King Abdullah important issues in the region, mainly the Gaza war and developments in Libya, Iraq and Syria,” Afifi Abdul Wahab, Egyptian ambassador to Riyadh, said. “The visit renews the kingdom’s support for Egypt at this crucial stage of the Egyptian history.”
Saudi Arabia along with the UAE and Kuwait have pumped a total of $20 billion (Dh73.4 billion) into the ailing Egyptian economy since the army, led by Al Sissi, deposed Islamist president Mohammad Mursi last year.
The Saudi government followed in the footsteps of Egypt and banned Mursi’s Muslim Brotherhood. Following Al Sissi’s landslide in the presidential election in late May, King Abdullah called for convening an international donor conference to support the Egyptian economy battered by more than three years of turmoil. The conference is expected to be held later this year, most likely in Egypt.
Al Sissi will also visit Russia later this week, marking his second trip to Moscow this year, semi-official newspaper Al Akhbar reported on Friday. In February, Al Sissi, a defence minister at the time, visited Moscow where he met President Vladimir Putin, signalling a revival of close ties that bound Cairo and Moscow in the 1960s.
Al Sissi’s trip to Moscow is due to start on Tuesday, according to Al Ahram. The news about the visit was announced a day after Al Sissi and Putin discussed the regional scene in a phone contact.
During an exchange of visits in recent months, senior Egyptian and Russian officials have agreed to expedite military and economic cooperation amid reports that Egypt eyes arms purchases worth $2 billion from Moscow.
The rapprochement comes as relations between Egypt and the US have been mostly strained since Mursi’s ouster. Last week, Al Sissi skipped an African-US summit in Washington, sending instead Prime Minister Ebrahim Mehleb to attend.