President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi addressed on Saturday the “coincidence” of visiting Saudi Arabia at the same time as his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
Al-Sisi is set to meet King Salman bin Abdul Aziz in Saudi Arabia on Sunday to conduct talks on the situation in Yemen and other threats in the region.
Erdogan is also set to meet with Abdul Aziz on Monday, although he is set to arrive to Riyadh on Saturday.
In statements to the Saudi Al-Arabiya channel Saturday, Al-Sisi stated that the synchronisation of his visit with the Turkish president’s is a coincidence.
(AFP PHOTO/STRINGER)
Al-Sisi also demanded that Turkey “stop intervening in Egypt’s internal affairs”.
Tensions have arisen between the two countries as the Turkish president has reiterated his critical comments on Egypt’s internal situation on different occasions since the ouster of former president Mohamed Morsi in 2013, which resulted in the downgrading of relations with Turkey.
Saudi Arabia played a role in alleviating similar tensions between Egypt and Qatar late in 2014, through a reconciliation initiative brokered by the conservative oil-rich kingdom.
Al-Sisi’s visit to Saudi Arabia will tackle the deterioration of the situation in Yemen and the need to correct it in order to avoid negative effects on the security of the Arabian Gulf and the Red Sea area, according to state-owned newspaper Al-Ahram.
The president’s visit to the kingdom is the first since King Salman bin Abdul Aziz ascended to power.
