Saudi denies high-level delegation visit to Egypt

Saudi Ambassador to Egypt Ahmed Kattan has denied reports that a senior Saudi delegation is visiting Cairo to discuss bilateral relations between the two countries.

Kattan wrote on the embassy’s official Twitter account yesterday that the Egyptian news reports about the visit were groundless.

Egyptian media reported earlier that the Saudi delegation, which included four senior royals, had arrived in Cairo on Tuesday to discuss Saudi-Egyptian ties. This came following the Arab League Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul Gheit’s meeting with King Salman Bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud on Monday, during which they discussed the need to unify the Arab world.

Egyptian-Saudi relations strained last month after Cairo voted in favour of Russia’s draft resolution regarding Syria in the United Nations Security Council. Saudi Arabia’s envoy to the UN, Abdullah Al-Mouallimi, said Egypt’s vote was “painful”.

Following the vote, Saudi Arabia’s state oil firm Aramco suspended oil shipments to Egypt, forcing it to buy oil from other sources to meet the local market’s needs. The halt of the Saudi oil supply happened before Egypt signed an agreement with Iraq to import oil from Basra.

Saudi Arabia was a major supporter of the military-backed regime in Egypt and has channelled billions of dollars in support of its government.