Sudanese Foreign Minister Ali Karti extended an invitation from Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi to attend his inauguration ceremony. Sudan's Al-Bashir was re-elected on Monday after wining 94% of the vote. During the Saturday meeting, Al-Sisi stressed the importance of pushing the relations between the two countries in all fields, and on both the official and popular levels, according to a Saturday Foreign Ministry statement. The Sudanese minister pointed to the opening of the "Qustul – Occhett" land crossing between Egypt and Sudan, which had been run on a trial basis last August, noting that the opening of this crossing is a sign of the ability of the two countries to overcome all obstacles for the development of bilateral cooperation. Al-Sisi highlighted the vital importance of the crossing to revive trade between the two countries. The Egyptian president discussed agricultural cooperation through the establishment of integrated agricultural communities, not only limited to agricultural activities, but also providing urban lands to accommodate the natural population growth, as well as the establishment of factories for packaging and other agricultural industries. Al-Sisi said that the border between the two countries should employ specialised areas for a number of industries, such as tanneries and slaughterhouses. The meeting was attended by Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry, who is scheduled to meet his Ethiopian counterpart Twadharos Adhanom Saturday evening. Shoukry and Adhanom's agenda includes exchanging views on the informal meeting of foreign ministers of the African Union, hosted by Ethiopia. The ministerial meeting is set to deal with ways to combat terrorism, and the implementation of the 2063 Agenda for the achievement of economic and social development in the African continent during the next 50 years. The Egyptian and Ethiopian foreign ministers' agenda also brings up a number of issues of mutual interest and regional issues, including the situation in the Horn of Africa and in Libya. After years of diplomatic dispute over the 2011 GERD project, Al-Sisi signed a "good intentions" agreement in March, setting the principles of cooperation between the two downstream countries, Egypt and Sudan, and upstream Ethiopia.
