Egypt FM visits Israel for talks on Middle East peace

By Kaamil Ahmed

JERUSALEM

Egypt's foreign minister made a rare visit to Israel on Sunday and held the first of two meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about restarting the Middle East peace process.

At a press conference before their meeting, Netanyahu said the 1979 peace deal between Israel and Egypt was a "cornerstone of regional stability" and welcomed Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi's calls for new peace talks to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Sameh Shoukry, the first Egyptian foreign minister to visit Israel since 2007, also spoke about restarting peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians.

“The current state of affairs unfortunately is neither stable nor sustainable,” he said.

In a statement on Sunday, Egypt’s foreign ministry said Shoukry’s visit was part of a push by Cairo to restart peace talks between the Palestinians and Israel.

Shoukry held talks with Palestinian officials in Ramallah last month.

While Israel has rejected a French initiative for a peace conference, it has been more open to Egyptian offers to host bilateral peace talks based on the Arab Peace Initiative, which would potentially see Israel recognized by Arab nations.

Last month, however, Netanyahu said that he would not accept the initiative's key condition that Israel withdraw from land occupied during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, including East Jerusalem.

Egypt was the first Arab country to recognize Israel after signing a peace treaty with the Jewish state in 1979.