Sisi came to Moscow with Egyptian Foreign Minister Nabil Fahmy for talks aimed at securing Russian assistance -- stagnant since the late Soviet era -- that could replace subsiding support from Cairo's more recent ally Washington.

Putin told Sisi that Moscow fully backed Egypt's new constitution and crucially made no mention of Cairo's crackdown on protests or the army-backed overthrow in July of Islamist President Mohammed Mursi.

"I know that you, mister defense minister, have decided to run for president of Egypt," Putin told Sisi in televised remarks.

"I wish you luck both from myself personally and from the Russian people."

The 59-year-old Egyptian field marshal has not actually declared his presidential ambitions but is overwhelmingly predicted to run in elections expected to be held later this year.

A Kuwaiti newspaper quoted Sisi as saying last week that he had "no choice but to meet the demands of the Egyptian people" and run for head of state. The army later denied the report.

Sisi would have to give up his title as head of the Egyptian armed forces in order to contest the election.

Sisi and Fahmy earlier on Thursday met their Russian counterparts to negotiate a $2-billion arms deal the two sides initially discussed in Cairo in November -- a month after Washington suspended millions of dollars in assistance to the Egyptian army over Morsi's ouster.

"Our visit offers a new start to the development of military and technological cooperation between Egypt and Russia," Sisi told Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu.

"We hope to speed up this cooperation," Sisi said.

Source: AFP

13-02-2014 - 23:45 Last updated 13-02-2014 - 23:45

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ساعة القاهرة _ التردد عن الترشح للانتخابات الرئاسية / الاتجاه 13 02 2014

By Osman El-Sharnoubi

In his first trip outside the country since ousting former president Mohamed Morsi, Egypt’s army chief Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi met with his Russian counterparts in Moscow to discuss a planned $2 billion arms deal.

The deal includes a Russian air defence system and, if signed as expected, will be the biggest military purchase from Russia since the Soviet era, marking a possible rekindling of a historic alliance that ended in the 1970s when former president Anwar Sadat reoriented Egypt’s position in favour of the US.

El-Sisi insisted in an interview earlier this week that closer relations with Russia are no replacement for existing relations with other countries.

His high-profile visit to Russia, in the company of Egypt’s foreign minister Nabil Fahmy, featured a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who expressed his firm support for El-Sisi’s presidential bid, not yet announced from the field marshal but widely anticipated.

El-Sisi stressed that the meeting represents “a new departure” for Egyptian-Russian military and technological cooperation, reported Egypt’s state news agency MENA.

Aside from Putin, the two-day talks were headed by Russia’s defence minister Sergei Shoigu and foreign minister Sergei Lavrov.

In a joint press conference following Thursday’s talks, Fahmy and Lavrov didn’t mention the military deal.

Instead, both ministers stressed the importance of Egypt and Russia’s bilateral relations in all spheres – military, economic and cultural – and that they see eye-to-eye regarding foreign intervention in the affairs of the Middle East.

On this issue, the ministers issued a joint statement regarding Syria which seemed to be a continuation of Russia’s policy on the war-torn country – backing the regime of Bashar Al-Assad and consistently blocking foreign military intervention.

The statement asserted that both countries’ rejected foreign intervention in Syrian affairs and stated their “utmost respect for the sovereignty, independence and unity of Syrian lands,” and said they condone a political settlement for the Syrian crisis.

Lavrov and Shoigu both visited Cairo last November, a meeting in which the framework for the current arms deal was first signed, according to a Reuters report citing Sergei Chemezov, head of Russia’s state industrial holding company Rostec.

Lavrov denied that Russia was striving to replace “any country” – a reference to the US – as Egypt’s key strategic partner.

Egypt’s decades-long alliance with the US was recently shaken by Morsi’s removal from power, a move the US did not initially support.

The US held back deliveries of military hardware – part of its long-entrenched aid program for Egypt – pending a democratic transition in the country, it had said.

“The move closer to Russia is a rebalancing of Egyptian strategic relations after decades of residing in Washington’s sphere,” said Moetaz Salama, international relations analyst at Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies.

Salama believes the move reflects a changing world and can be seen as a more realistic and dynamic way for Egypt to manage international relations.

He also saw the trip as a chance to present El-Sisi as a capable leader to Egyptians and the world.

Russia’s Putin was the first president to congratulate Egypt on the approval of its 2014 constitution, which passed in a referendum that many saw more as a vote on El-Sisi’s viability as Egypt’s next president.

Putin said that El-Sisi’s run for president would be “a very responsible decision:  to undertake such a mission for the fate of the Egyptian people.”

“On my own part, and on behalf of the Russian people, I wish you success,” he said.