Dubravka Filipovski highlighted the importance of the deep friendship between Serbia and Egypt evidenced in the 110 years of diplomatic relations between the two countries.

“Our friendship is so deep and strong that Belgrade and Cairo were the very torch bearers of the Non-Aligned Movement”, said Filipovski.

The deep friendship between the two countries is also confirmed by the fact that, though Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi had recognized the self-proclaimed independence of Kosovo just days before he was toppled from power, Egypt never established residential or indeed non-residential cooperation with Kosovo and Ambassador Aljowaily said that this will not change. He affirmed Egypt’s solid support of Serbia by sharing Egyptian Foreign Minister’s decision that an Egyptian delegation would not be attending the celebration of the 10th anniversary of Kosovo independence.

The officials agreed that there is room to advance interparliamentary cooperation, especially through reciprocal visits of parliamentary friendship groups. Since new parliamentary friendship groups will be set up after the Egyptian election, Filipovski underlined the importance of establishing such a group with Serbia seeing how there had not been one in the Egyptian parliament in the last 7 years.

Filipovski commended the human rights in Egypt evidenced in the peaceful co-existence with Coptic Christians and the state’s resolve to combat terrorism. She believes these two topics should be the subject of future meetings and an ample field for an exchange of experiences, while the Ambassador took the opportunity to hand in the his Government’s reports on the rights of women and children in Egypt to the PFG Head and members.

The Ambassador believes that cultural exchange should be the pillar of future cooperation between Serbia and Egypt. To that end, he informed the PFG Head and members about the projects and ideas he would be championing during his mandate. He also mentioned it would be good to set up a direct flight to Egypt seeing how in the last year the number of Serbian tourists had risen by 144%.

PFG members Dr Danica Bukvic and Bojan Torbica spoke about the friendly relations between the two countries, agreeing with the Ambassador that cultural exchange should be the pillar of cooperation between Serbia and Egypt in the coming period.