Russia's Putin, Egypt's Sisi say committed to fighting terrorism | Reuters - 0 views
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United by a deep hostility toward Islamists, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Russia's Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday they were both committed to fighting the threat of terrorism.
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Sisi, who is fighting a raging Islamist insurgency in the Sinai region, said Putin had agreed with him that "the challenge of terrorism that faces Egypt, and which Russia also faces, does not stop at any borders
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utin, making his first state visit to Egypt in a decade, said they agreed on "reinforcing our efforts in combating terrorism
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The Kremlin chief was the first leader of a major power to visit Egypt since former army chief Sisi became president in 2014
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Sisi has repeatedly called for concerted counter-terrorism efforts in the Middle East and the West. Egypt has fought Islamist militancy for decades, mostly through security crackdowns that have weakened, but failed to eliminate, radical group
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Putin has also resorted to force against Islamists, sending troops to quell a separatist rebellion in Chechnya, but still confronts insurgents in parts of the predominantly Muslim North Caucasus region
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Egypt and the Soviet Union were close allies until the 1970s when Cairo moved closer to the United States, which brokered its 1979 peace deal with Israel.
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Putin, facing Western isolation and sanctions over his support for pro-Russian separatists in neighboring Ukraine, received a grand welcome in Cair
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Putin said he expected a new round of talks on the Syrian conflict, following on from a meeting of some opposition figures and the Damascus government in Moscow last month
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The Moscow talks, which ended on Jan. 29, were not seen as yielding a breakthrough as they were shunned by the key political opposition in Syria and did not involve the main insurgent groups fighting on the ground