Egypt decides it cannot live without Russia

By Vestnik Kavkaza

Secretary of State John Kerry intends to visit Egypt in the upcoming weeks. Since President Mohamed Morsi was dismissed in July and mass riots took place in the country, relations between the U.S. and Egypt have worsened. Barack Obama’s administration decided to suspend exporting heavy armaments and financial support to Egypt, but it continues helping in the border control, fighting against terrorism, as well as providing security in the region. According to ITAR-TASS, annually Washington awards about $1.5 billion to Cairo.

Egypt remains one of the major grain importers in the world. And the biggest part of grain import comes to Egypt from Russia. A delegation of Egyptian society visited Moscow as part of a mission of people’s diplomacy. It includes representatives of various layers of Egyptian society, official, social, religious, scientific, cultural and business circles.

Ahmed Abdullah, the governor of Red Sea Province in Egypt, told that the delegation met Mikhail Bogdanov, the deputy foreign minister: “Our meeting lasted more than two hours and we discussed the whole agenda. Our side spoke about Egypt’s position on the road map, on other questions and that the Egyptian people were enthusiastic about fulfillment of the road map. Moreover, we touched on bilateral relations with Russia, and we stood for intensification of our bilateral relations. Our ties have deep roots and a 70-year-old history. We can say that we celebrate the 70thanniversary of our Egyptian-Russian relations. We know that the Russian people and the Russian government have always supported our positions. Today many people in Egypt feel gratitude to the Russian position of support and solidarity. We remember when the Russian state provided aid to Egypt in the difficult period of democratic changes.

We also spoke about the developments in our country, about the threat of terrorist forces which want to destabilize the situation and that we are ready to fight them. Because of terrorist attacks, the tourist inflow to our country has reduced, but we stated that the Red Sea and the south of the Sinai Peninsula were regions which were ready to welcome tourists.”

The Egyptians asked to cancel the ban on visiting our tourist regions, which was launched by the Russian Foreign Ministry. “Today political stability has been achieved. Now we are working on economic stability. Of course there are many problems, but anyway we are ready to develop relations with Russia,” Ahmed Abdullah said.