Egypt and Russia are Determined to Continue Cooperation

• 02.12.2015, 18:09
•  EEU,  Near East,  World

Egypt and Russia are determined to continue cooperation both in political and economic fields.  Russia’s president Vladimir Putin ended his historical two-day trip to Egypt which he described as very meaningful and constructive. Putin also invited his Egyptian counterpart Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to visit Moscow. According to RIA Novosti, the main results of Russian president's two-day working visit to Cairo are the agreements on the participation of Rosatom in the construction of the first Egyptian nuclear power plant and the creation of a free trade zone between Egypt and the Eurasian Economic Union.

Experts note that the presidents of Egypt and Russia demonstrated complete convergence of views on regional issues. Both presidents in the joint press-conference spoke about the reached agreement to confront the challenges that they face, including terrorism. Russian experts note that Russian leader’s visit can be considered as historical, but for the sake of strengthening the strategic partnership between the two countries a great job still must be done. Besides, Moscow and Cairo are discussing the option of turning to the payment system in national currencies.

According to the Egyptian daily Al-Ahram, hours after the announcement of the presidents, the  state department spokesperson Jen Psaki said that the US would not oppose a nuclear deal for peaceful purposes between Russia and Egypt. "We don’t have concerns about what we know to date about this (memorandum of understanding)," Psaki said at a daily press briefing. "We support peaceful nuclear power programs as long as obligations under the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty to which Egypt is a signatory and obligations to the (International Atomic Energy Agency) are fully met," she added.

It should be noted that since the ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in July 2013, Cairo has sought to strengthen its ties with Moscow, against the backdrop of strained ties with its long-time ally Washington.