Saudi Arabia and Egypt agreed on the importance of guaranteeing freedom of navigation in the Arabian Gulf, the Bab El-Mandab strait and the Red Sea, and stressed that they reject any attempt to hinder navigation in the area.
This came in a joint statement issued by the Egyptian-Saudi Political Consultation Committee after a meeting led by Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan and his Egyptian counterpart Sameh Shoukry was held on Tuesday.
Saudi Arabia, for its part, backed Egypt’s rights to preserve its water security with respect to the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD).
Farhan asserted his country’s support of Egypt’s aim to reach a legally binding agreement on the GERD through serious talks.
Saudi Arabia also acknowledged that Egypt’s water security was integral to Arab water security.
The two countries reaffirmed that their shared ties are pivotal to the stability of the region on political, economic, Islamic, cultural and military levels. They said that the future of the region requires strengthening joint cooperation between the two countries to support the interests of their peoples.
More so, the two sides stressed the rejection of regional interference in Arab internal affairs and attempts to destabilize the region's security and stability.
They also stressed the importance of the Palestinian issue as the central issue of the Arab nation, and emphasized that a just and comprehensive solution requires establishing an independent and sovereign Palestinian state on the borders of the 1967 agreement, with East Jerusalem as its capital, based on the Arab Peace Initiative and relevant international legitimacy decisions.
For his part, Shoukry expressed Egypt’s total support for Saudi Arabia protecting its national security and rejects any attack on Saudi territories, asserting that the national security of the kingdom is connected to that of Egypt.
The two sides also agreed on the importance of preserving Libya’s security and rejecting all foreign interference in its affairs, and stressed that they support a comprehensive political solution based on the Berlin Conference and the Cairo Declaration.
Shoukry and Farhan also agreed that Egypt and Saudi Arabia should work to boost economic cooperation and work on removing any obstacles standing in the way of increasing commercial and investment exchange.
They also discussed the latest developments concerning the coronavirus pandemic and its repercussions on various levels.
