Mubarak's visit to Moscow, new horizons for Egypt-Russia cooperation

The Russian government's coordinator for science and culture underlined that Egyptian-Russian relations in various fields are distinguished.

In an interview with MENA, he said that Moscow is convinced of Egypt's leading role in the area and distinguished Egyptian efforts to halt deterioration of the situation in the occupied Palestinian lands.

"Moscow pays attention to its relations with Egypt at economic, trade and political levels," he said referring to the successful visit recently paid to Moscow by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

He referred to potentials of joint economic, scientific, trade and military cooperation.

Speaking of Moscow's role in pushing forward the Middle East peace process, the Russian official said that Russia possesses the tools of activating its role in the peacemaking.

"Russia has already started direct dialogue with the region's states including Israel," he said.

"Russia is trying to promote its foreign relations especially in the Middle East, referring to recent visits by a number of Arab leaders and politicians to Moscow," he added.

"The Middle East issue and the situation in the Baltic region will be on the agenda of the Russia-EU Summit due in Moscow on May 17," he said.

"Despite Moscow's priorities of direct impact on its economic situation, it has not stopped paying attention to issues of stability in the Middle East region especially the situation in the occupied Palestinian lands," he added.