President Abdel Fattah El Sisi met on Monday13/6/2016 visiting Portuguese Foreign Minister Augusto Santos Silva in the presence of Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry and the Portuguese Ambassador in Cairo.

During the meeting, Silva handed over Sisi a message from his Portuguese counterpart inviting him to pay an official visit to the southern European country, Presidency Spokesman Alaa Youssef said.

The top Portuguese diplomat stressed that his country is looking forward to boosting ties with Egypt and upgrading cooperation in various fields in light of mutual challenges that require coordination between both countries.

President Sisi, for his part, expressed appreciation for his Portuguese counterpart's invitation to visit Portugal, pointing to Egypt's keenness on bolstering cooperation with Portugal at various levels along with increasing trade exchange.

Meanwhile, Sisi reviewed the latest local developments and hailed Portugal's stance toward the recent events that Egypt has witnessed over the past few years.

On this score, Silva praised Egypt's efforts to achieve political stability, promote pluralism and citizenship values and build its constitutional institutions.

He further voiced his country's appreciation for Egypt's key role in the Middle East and South-Mediterranean with regard to fighting terrorism and seeking security and stability in the region, underscoring Portugal's support for Egypt in its war against terror.

Counter-terrorism and extremism efforts exerted by Egypt have been highlighted by Sisi who underlined the importance of adopting a comprehensive perspective for fighting terrorism comprising the cultural, developments, religious, security and military aspects.

Besides tackling the latest regional developments in Libya and Syria, the meeting took up means of upgrading tourism cooperation.