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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

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

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

Putin, facing Western isolation and sanctions over his support for pro-Russian separatists in neighboring Ukraine, received a grand welcome in Cair

Sisi has since opened up to Moscow, describing Russia on Tuesday as a "strategic friend"

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.

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

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

Moscow has been a long-standing ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad

Russia also leases a naval facility at the Syrian port of Tartu

Moscow also signed a $550 million deal with Syria for combat training jets

value of Russian arms sales to Syria at $162 million per year in both 2009 and 2010

Russia's key policy goal is blocking American efforts to shape the regio

Russia doesn't believe revolutions, wars and regime change bring stability and democracy

It believes humanitarian concerns are often used an excuse for pursuing America's own political and economic interests.

Putin's existential fear for his own survival and the survival of the repressive system that he and al-Assad represent

not only driven by the need to preserve its naval presence in the Mediterranean, secure its energy contracts, or counter the West on 'regime change

al-Assad cannot lose because it means that one day he, Putin, might as well

The West handles the Islamic world the way a monkey handles a grenade," Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin tweeted

Russia is a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council. It has the power to veto Security Council resolutions against the Syrian regime and has done so repeatedly over the past two years

religion and strategy.

Islamic Republic has provided technical help such as intelligence, communications and advice on crowd control and weapons as protests in Syria morphed into resistance

The last thing Iran wants now is a Sunni-dominated Syria -- especially as the rebels' main supporters are Iran's Persian Gulf rivals: Qatar and Saudi Arabi

proxy through which Iran can threaten Israel with an arsenal of short-range missiles

Iran counted on Syria as its only Arab ally during its eight-year war with Iraq. Iraq was Sunni-dominate

war between the front of hegemony and the front of resistance

Syrian government is a victim of international plots

Iran says the main objective of this plot is to make the region safer for Israe

Many believe Iran is Washington's greatest threat in the region, especially with its nuclear potential

the Americans will sustain damage like when they interfered in Iraq and Afghanistan

Syria's third-largest importer in 2010, according to data from the European Commission

maintain its financial tie

indicates that China sees Syria as an important trading hub

China has said foreign countries shouldn't meddle in Syria's internal affairs

Rather than siding with either Assad or the opposition and standing aside to 'wait and see,' Beijing is actively betting on both

China said it is firmly opposed to the use of chemical weapons and supports the U.N.'s chemical weapons inspectors.

It also said it wants a political solution for Syri

China is a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council. And like Russia, China has repeatedly blocked sanctions attempts against the Syrian regime

Chinese leader opened the Sixth Ministerial Meeting of the China-Arab Cooperation Forum on June 5 in Beijing

energy cooperation; infrastructure construction and creation of favorable conditions for trade and investment; and high-tech domains of nuclear energy, the space rocket sector and new energy sources

suggested that the creation of a free trade zone between China and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) be accelerated

China supports the peace process and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state within the borders of June 4, 1967, with East Jerusalem as its capital, "enjoying full sovereignty."

, why shouldn’t Russia and China in the current situation — given the proximity of their interests and positions — undertake joint initiatives to unblock the peace process, while initiating steps to "introduce this activity within an institutional framework?

, the unilateral efforts by US Secretary of State John Kerry to promote the Israeli-Palestinian peace process are not bearing fruit

Russia is interested in using this unprecedented convergence with China in its operations on the Middle East arena, where Moscow has in many ways already been acting in unison with Beijing

, the Middle East Quartet is one of few international platforms where Russia can constructively engage with the United States and the EU

China's growing economic cooperation with Arab countries not a cause for concern in Moscow, but it is also viewed in a very favorable light

will not one day replace the United States as the security guarantor for the transportation routes of these resources

Moscow’s and Beijing’s interests converge in the joint countering of terrorism, extremism and separatism

. Among the militants from radical groups fighting against government troops in Syria, there are people hailing not only from Russia and Central Asia (fewer in numbers to those coming from Arab and Islamic as well as Western countries), but also from the Uighur minority in China.

recently, Beijing came under harsh criticism from Ankara for its actions in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region against the Uighur population, which the Turks believe to be their next of kin

. Disappointed by the failure of EU accession, the Turkish leadership has even started talking about the desire to join the SCO as an observer

Ankara expresses its willingness to cooperate with China in the fight against terrorists and condemns the separatism coming from some groups in Xinjiang

There is no doubt that a comprehensive strategic partnership, in which Russia and China would act in concert along the political consensus reached by their two leaders, would in the short term

According to both, this convergence is neither a union nor a tournament of predators, but a very pragmatic integrationist instrument of protection and projection of interests by the two powers, including in the Middle East.

the Middle East was not the focus of the talks between the two leaders

roughly 50 agreements ushering in a period of unprecedented convergence between the two countries

seems to allow the two parties to seek further coordination in their actions

Such consensus includes Syria, despite Beijing’s lesser involvement on this issue, relative to Moscow; Iran, within the P5+1 (the five permanent UN Security Council members plus Germany) negotiations with Tehran over its nuclear program; the fight against terrorism and extremism; the creation of a weapons of mass destruction-free Middle East; the condemnation of external intervention and the strategy of "regime change" as well as the push for "color revolutions;" the policy to reach a settlement in the Middle East; and relations with the new Egyptian regime and with respect to the Sudanese issues.