CAIRO
Egyptian Defense Minister Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi and Foreign Minister Nabil Fahmi met separately on Thursday with a visiting US Congressional delegation, a source at the US embassy in Cairo said.
The delegation began by meeting with Fahmi at Foreign Ministry headquarters in Cairo before heading to the Defense Ministry to meet with al-Sisi, the source added.
The source declined to give details of the talks, but said they had tackled the domestic situation in Egypt and regional issues, including the Syria crisis and Palestinian-Israeli peace talks.
Headed up by Tim Kaine, chairman of the US Senate subcommittee on the Middle East, the delegation, which arrived late Wednesday, was the second to arrive in Cairo within 48 hours.
According to a Foreign Ministry statement, the delegation's talks with Fahmi touched on possible means of bolstering bilateral ties and regional issues.
At the meeting, the statement noted, Famhi had "asserted Egypt's keenness to be open to the world and enlist new partners while preserving existing ties."
On Monday, a two-member delegation led by US Republican Congressman Mike Rogers (who also serves as head of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence in the US House of Representatives), arrived in Cairo for talks with senior Egyptian officials.
Delegation members were also received by al-Sisi, seen as the chief architect of last July's ouster of elected president Mohamed Morsi.
The two visits come only days after al-Sisi visited Moscow, where he agreed with Russian officials on the need to step up military cooperation between Russia and Egypt – despite the latter's longstanding "strategic partnership" with the US.
Last November, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov both visited Cairo. It was the first visit to Egypt by a Russian defense minister since 1971.
Al-Sisi is widely expected to contest Egypt's upcoming presidential elections. No date has yet been given for the polls, but they are expected sometime within the next three months.
Presidential elections represent the second step in an army-imposed roadmap for political transition, unveiled by al-Sisi last summer following Morsi's overthrow by the military.
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