U.S. Defense Secretary visits Egypt in regional tour starting Tuesday

CAIRO- 14 April: U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis will start a regional trip Tuesday, where he will visit Egypt among five MENA countries,

Reuters

quoted a Pentagon statement on Friday.

During the six-day tour, scheduled to end April 23, Mattis will discuss “cooperative effort to counter destabilizing activities and defeat extremist terror organizations,” according to the statement.

Mattis met with the Egyptian President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi on April 5 at the Pentagon headquarters, where they discussed “a range of Middle East security issues and expressed desire to cooperate on counterterrorism and regional challenges,” according to a

statement

by the U.S. embassy in Egypt.

In the first week of April, President Sisi made his first state visit to Washington, where he met with U.S. President Donald Trump and senior U.S. government officials.