The Saudi embassy in Cairo yesterday denied reports issued by the Egyptian media that the kingdom had agreed to send 2,000 Saudi sponsored students to study at Egyptian universities, the Anadolu Agency reported.
In a statement, the Saudi embassy denied that a phone call took place between Egyptian official in the Ministry of Higher Education, Hussam Al-Mallahi, and the embassy in which the former announced the agreement to send 2,000 Saudi sponsored students to Egypt.
In the statement, the embassy noted that Al-Mallahi claimed that Saudi did not halt the scholarship programme for 12 years.
A report about this claimed phone call was initially published by the government-owned newspaper Al-Ahram. The report claimed that an agreement reached with the Saudi Ambassador to Cairo Ahmed Al-Qattan, noting that 700 students have already arrived in Egypt.
In October last year, a lawyer in the Saudi embassy in Cairo said that Saudi Arabia halted the scholarship programme in Egypt.
“With the increasing numbers of forged master’s and PhD degrees from Egypt, the Saudi Ministry of Higher Education decided to stop postgraduate admissions to Egypt for an indefinite period of time,” the lawyer at the Saudi embassy in Egypt said.
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