Valentina Matviyenko, the chairperson of the Russian Federation Council, met on Saturday with Egyptian parliament speaker Ali Abdul Aal.
Matviyenko, who heads a delegation that arrived in Egypt on Friday for an official visit until Sunday, is also scheduled to meet with President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi. The programme includes discussions on combating terrorism, as well as meetings with Egyptian officials to discuss international problems and cooperation on counter-terrorism, Russian news agency TASS reported.
In a joint press conference with Abdul Aal, Matviyenko said that Egypt achieved 90% of requirements needed for the resumption of Russian flights, pointing out that the tragic plane crash necessitates pushing for strict airport security measures.
Several talks on the return of Russian tourism have yet to achieve results. TASS reported that the visit was “not related to the issue of resuming air traffic” to Egypt, adding that positive results were expected but that there were details that “the Russian side is not satisfied with concerning flight security.”
A Russian Metrojet flight crashed over the Sinai Peninsula on 31 October 2015, killing all 224 people abroad, as a result of a terrorist attack using a bomb on board—claimed by the Islamic State. Since then, Russia halted flights and assigned experts to improve and regularly evaluate Egypt’s airport security systems.
