The Egyptian and Russian parliaments said Tuesday that they must take a unified stand against the forceful changing of Middle East regimes by foreign powers.
A statement by Egypt’s parliament said on Tuesday that Egyptian-Russian relations have achieved significant progress in recent years, and that the two parliaments will coordinate together during the coming round of meetings of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) in Geneva.
"We decided that we should rally support among as many world parliaments as possible against intervention in the internal affairs of Middle East countries and reject any attempts aimed at changing regimes by force in this region," said the statement.
The statement also indicated that the agriculture committees in Egypt and Russia’s parliaments will forge greater contacts in the coming period to help eliminate any obstacles that might stem the flow of Egyptian agricultural exports – especially potatoes – into the Russian market.
The statement was issued after a meeting between Egyptian parliament speaker Ali Abdel-Al and a Russian parliamentary delegation led by deputy speaker Ilyas Umakhanov on Tuesday.
The statement said Egypt and Russia have historic relations that go back to the era of late president Gamal Abdel-Nasser.
"We decided that these relations must be further strengthened in the coming period in order to eliminate any obstacles that might stand in their way," said the statement.
Parliament speaker Abdel-Al said Egypt highly appreciates Russian president Vladimir Putin's support of the 30 June revolution of 2013, which led to the removal of the regime of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Speaker Abdel-Al said that he has high hopes that a high-profile delegation from the Russian parliament will join celebrations intended to mark the 150th anniversary parliamentary life in Egypt at the Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh on 9 October.
Abdel-Al said Tuesday that speakers from as many as 16 countries will attend next week's celebrations in Sharm El-Sheikh.
Russian deputy parliament speaker Umakhanov said a high-profile Russian delegation will attend the Sharm El-Sheikh celebration.
"We also invited the Egyptian parliament to attend the coming meetings of the parliamentary assembly of the newly independent states as an observer," said Umakhanov, adding that he also asked speaker Abdel-Aal to send a young parliamentary delegation to participate in the 2017 Festival of Youth and Students which will be held in Russia, aiming to host 120,000 young people from 190 worldwide countries.
