CAIRO: A senior Russian delegation met on Sunday with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi in Cairo, his spokesman said, with the parties committing to “continuing to strengthen bilateral relations.”
El-Sisi’s spokesman Ahmed Fahmy said in a statement the visiting delegation was led by Mikhail Bogdanov, Russia’s deputy foreign minister and President Vladimir Putin’s special envoy to the Middle East, and included Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov.
The two sides committed to strengthening ties across multiple sectors, Fahmy added, including Egypt’s first nuclear power plant being built by Russia’s state atomic energy corporation Rosatom.
The visit came two days after the Hague-based International Criminal Court announced an arrest warrant for Putin on the war crimes accusation of unlawfully deporting Ukrainian children.
In a visit to Cairo in January, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken hailed “Egypt’s votes in the United Nations to condemn Russia’s invasion” as a show of support for Ukraine.
But Cairo has sought to avoid straining relations with Moscow due to its dependency on Russian imports.
Before the war, which has entered its second year, 85 percent of Egypt’s wheat imports were sourced from both Russia and Ukraine.
Since the February 2022 invasion, food prices have skyrocketed in the North African country, contributing to a punishing economic crisis.