{"id":34120,"date":"2017-04-24T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-04-24T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/egypt-s-abdel-fattah-el-sisi-visits-saudi-arabia\/"},"modified":"2017-04-24T14:54:17","modified_gmt":"2017-04-24T14:54:17","slug":"egypt-s-abdel-fattah-el-sisi-visits-saudi-arabia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/egypt-s-abdel-fattah-el-sisi-visits-saudi-arabia\/","title":{"rendered":"Egypt’s Abdel Fattah el-Sisi visits Saudi Arabia"},"content":{"rendered":"

{Egyptian president heads to Riyadh for meeting aimed at ‘bolstering strategic relations’ between the two powers.}<\/p>\n

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi received a royal welcome from King Salman as he landed on Sunday in Saudi Arabia for a visit to boost ties after months of tension.<\/p>\n

Salman, surrounded by key Saudi officials, greeted Sisi as he stepped off the plane in the capital Riyadh and hosted him for lunch, the official Saudi Press Agency said.<\/p>\n

The Egyptian presidency announced the visit in a statement on Friday, saying Sisi’s trip was in response to an invitation by Salman and aimed at “bolstering strategic relations between the two countries”. <\/p>\n

It said Salman and Sisi would discuss “regional and international issues of common interest”.<\/p>\n

“The struggle against terrorism which threatens security and stability” in the region and beyond would top their agenda, it said.<\/p>\n

Sisi met Salman on the sidelines of an Arab League summit in Jordan last month to break the ice after months of apparent tensions between the two Middle Eastern allies.<\/p>\n

That encounter on March 29 came days after Egypt announced that Saudi energy giant Aramco had resumed delivering shipments of petroleum products after abruptly suspending them in October.<\/p>\n

Aramco halted agreed monthly deliveries of 700,000 tonnes of petroleum products without explanation.<\/p>\n

But the move came after Egypt voted in favour of a Russian-drafted UN Security Council resolution on Syria that Saudi Arabia strongly opposed.<\/p>\n

“These are two former giants in the region who are trying to regain their roles, and they understand that by working together they can help each other,” Rami Khouri, a senior public policy fellow with the Issam Fares Institute at the American University of Beirut, told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n

Moscow is a staunch supporter of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad while Riyadh is a key backer of the rebels who are fighting his government.<\/p>\n

Ties between Cairo and Riyadh also suffered after an agreement to hand over to Saudi Arabia two Red Sea islands – signed during a visit by Salman to Cairo last year was blocked by a court ruling.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, an Egyptian court ruled the decision to block the transfer of Tiran and Sanafir to Saudi Arabia was invalid.<\/p>\n

Cairo has said the islands were Saudi territory that had been leased to Egypt in the 1950s.<\/p>\n

Saudi Arabia supported Egypt with billions of dollars in aid after Sisi toppled President Mohamed Morsi in 2013 when he was head of the Egyptian army.<\/p>\n

Saudi Arabia is opposed to the now-outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, to which Morsi belongs.<\/p>\n

\"Saudi<\/figure>\n

Source:Al Jazeera<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{Egyptian president heads to Riyadh for meeting aimed at ‘bolstering strategic relations’ between the two powers.} Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi received a royal welcome from King Salman as he landed on Sunday in Saudi Arabia for a visit to boost ties after months of tension. Salman, surrounded by key Saudi officials, greeted Sisi as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[100],"byline":[160],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-34120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics-48","tag-africa","byline-theophile-niyitegeka"],"bylines":[{"id":160,"name":"Th\u00e9ophile Niyitegeka","slug":"theophile-niyitegeka","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":3}],"contributors":[{"id":160,"name":"Th\u00e9ophile Niyitegeka","slug":"theophile-niyitegeka","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":3}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34120","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34120"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34120\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34120"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=34120"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=34120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}