The United States today welcomed the visit to Israel by Shafi Abdel-Hamid, an Assistant Secretary of State at the Foreign Ministry in Cairo, as a step toward the “direct dialogue” the U.S. has been urging between the two countries.
“We have long urged that there be a good dialogue between Israel and Egypt, ” State Department spokesman Alan Romberg said. He noted that the United States has said that improved bilateral relations between Egypt and Israel would come about if the two countries discussed their differences.
Abdel-Hamid is the first high-ranking Egyptian to visit Israel since Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in June 1982.
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