Egypt's Foreign Affairs Minister Sameh Shoukry will fly to Vienna on Thursday to participate in Friday's international and regional ministerial meeting on Syria, state news agency MENA reported. On 23 October, the United States, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey agreed in a quadrilateral meeting to include more countries, like Egypt, in the discussion of Syria's political developments. In his UN general assembly speech in September, President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi called for the "building of a new democratic Syria" but said Syria's "state structure" should remain intact. Earlier this month, Shoukry said that, "Russia's intervention in Syria will curtail the spread of terrorism and help deal a fatal blow to the Islamic State group in the war-torn country." In 2015, Cairo hosted two meetings with Syria's opposition, and Egypt's Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry held talks with Syrian opposition delegations to find a political solution to the conflict that would ensure the unity and independence of the country. Egypt has not stressed that Al-Assad must leave office, saying it believes a political solution is necessary to end the four-year-old civil war. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia, a key Egyptian ally that has propped up Cairo economically, has insisted Al-Assad must go. Egypt currently hosts a population of Syrian refugees, more than 140,000 of whom are registered with the UNHCR. Source : Ahram online
