Saudi King in Egypt to meet Sisi
Saudi King Abdullah will meet Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in Cairo on Friday, diplomatic and security sources told AFP, his first visit since the 2011 overthrow of dictator Hosni Mubarak.
Saudi Arabia welcomed the July military ouster of elected president Mohamed Morsi led by ex-army chief Sisi and has pledged billions of dollars in aid to Egypt's military-installed authorities.
The king "will stop in Cairo in an unofficial and unannounced visit. It is expected that president Sisi meets him at the (Cairo international) airport", an official from the Saudi embassy in Cairo told AFP on Thursday evening.
An airport security official confirmed the information.
"King Abdullah will visit Cairo and the authorities are taking all necessary measures for Sisi to receive him at the airport or at the Ittihadiya presidential palace", he told AFP.
Sisi won a May 26-28 presidential election after he retired from the army, but the polls were blasted as sham by the majority of the country's opposition.
King Abdullah hailed his victory and called for a "donors conference" to help Egypt overcome an economic crisis sparked by three years of unrest that followed Mubarak's overthrow.
In a statement, the Saudi royal court said the monarch would visit Egypt on his way back home from a private trip to Morocco, official Saudi news agency SPA reported.
The statement, however, gave no details about the timeframe or agenda of his surprise visit to Egypt.
A Saudi diplomatic source told Anadolu Agency on Friday that a proposed donor conference – to discuss means of shoring up Egypt's foundering economy – would dominate King Abdullah's upcoming talks with Sisi.
After Morsi's ouster, Riyadh quickly pledged $5 billion (3.7 billion euros) in aid to Cairo, with Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates offered a combined $7 billion.
Saudi Arabia had long seen Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood as a threat and has declared it a "terrorist" organisation, months after Egypt itself blacklisted the group.
Since Morsi's ouster, a government crackdown on his supporters has left more than 1,400 killed and at least 15,000 jailed.
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