Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett arrived in Egypt on Monday in order to meet Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi for talks.
The meeting was expected to cover Israeli-Palestinian relations and bilateral issues, Egypt's presidency said, in the first official trip by an Israeli head of government to Egypt for a decade.
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Bennett was invited to visit by el-Sissi last month and the two met in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh on the southern tip of Egypt's Sinai peninsula.
According to a senior Egyptian official, the visit is designed to have the two leaders get to know each other and improve bilateral ties, although the key issue that would be discussed in their meeting will be el-Sissi 's request to increase the number of Egyptian troops in northern Sinai that would go beyond the limits set by the 1979 peace treaty.
The bolstered military presence would help Egypt in its efforts to route out jihadi terrorists there. An uptick in cross-border violence since late August has tested the fragile truce. Over the past week, Palestinian terrorists have fired rockets into Israel for three nights in a row, drawing Israeli airstrikes.
Bennett and el-Sissi were also expected to discuss regional issues including Iran's influence in the Middle East and the crisis in Lebanon, diplomats said.
Following the meeting, an official told Israel Hayom that the two sides agreed on a substantial increase in trade and tourism between the two countries.
Just before heading back to Israel, Bennett issued the following statement: "The meeting was very good and very important. During the meeting, we laid the foundation for deep ties further down the road and discussed a whole gamut of issues dealing with diplomatic, security and economic aspects and on the means to bolster our relations and promote the interests of both countries. Israel is opening up to the region and the foundation for this is the peace between Israel and Egypt. We must invest in this relationship and we did this today."
Egypt became the first Arab country to sign a peace treaty with Israel but relations have remained cool, restricted to security cooperation and limited economic links.
The last official visit by an Israeli prime minister to Egypt was when Benjamin Netanyahu met former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in January 2011 in Sharm el-Sheikh, just before the uprising that toppled Mubarak.
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