Egyptian leader Mursi travels to Saudi to boost ties

PanARMENIAN.Net - Saudi Arabia gave a lavish reception to Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi on Thursday, July 12 a gesture analysts said indicated the Arab world's wealthiest country was ready to put old tensions behind it to do business with the new Islamist president, Reuters said.

In his first official foreign visit since his election in June, Mursi, who belonged to Egypt's influential Muslim Brotherhood movement which had long had strained ties with Saudi Arabia, arrived in Jeddah late on Wednesday.

Saudi Arabia enjoyed strong ties with former president Hosni Mubarak, who was toppled last year by a popular uprising that propelled Mursi's Muslim Brotherhood to the top political spot in the Arab world's most populous country.

The Brotherhood and Saudi Arabia share Sunni Muslim values, but Riyadh regards the movement as an ideological rival with an aggressively activist political doctrine that might destabilize allies and foment discord inside the kingdom.

Yet Mursi's election left Saudi Arabia with little option other than to try to extend its hand to the new president.

Saudi analysts said the reception King Abdullah prepared for Mursi showed the kingdom was willing to start a new era in relations with the Muslim Brotherhood.

Hussein Shobokshi, a Saudi commentator, said: "Through this visit Saudi Arabia has made it very clear and obvious that it is over the Mubarak era and that it has started a new chapter with the new leader of Egypt."

Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil exporter, has pledged $2.7 billion to support Egypt's battered finances after the uprising that toppled Mubarak.

But relations nosedived in April when Riyadh briefly recalled its ambassador to Cairo, Mohammed al-Qattan, after protests outside the embassy over the arrest of an Egyptian lawyer in the kingdom.

Egyptian parliament members, including senior Muslim Brotherhood figures, travelled to Saudi Arabia to defuse tensions.