UN Middle East peace envoy arrives in Cairo on first visit

Friday 01-05-2015 PM 10:25
UN Middle East peace envoy arrives in Cairo on first visit
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CAIRO, May 1 (Aswat Masriya) - The United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process arrived in Cairo late Friday, on his first visit to Egypt since taking up post last February.

UN envoy Nickolay Mladenov is scheduled to meet with a number of Egyptian officials to look into the latest regional developments and means of reviving the peace process between Palestinians and Israelis, a UN official told Aswat Masriya.

The visit is part of Mladenov's trip to the region, where he is also visiting Jordan, Israel, Ramallah and the Palestinian Gaza Strip. Mladenov also serves as Personal Representative of the UN secretary general to the Palestine Liberation Organisation and the Palestinian Authority. 

The UN official added that Mladenov will also look into the reconstruction of Gaza, battered severely by an Israeli offensive which lasted for 50 days last summer.

In October 2014, Egypt and Norway co-hosted an international donors conference on the reconstruction of the Strip in Cairo, raising around 5.4 billion dollars in donations. 

The majority of the donations were, however, stalled.

Egypt's Foreign Minister Sameh Shukri said last December that donations remained unpaid due to the "international community’s lack of trust in a permanent solution to halted indirect negotiations between Israel and Hamas."

Indirect negotiations between Israel and Palestinian factions, sponsored by Cairo, were scheduled to resume within a month after the start of the new Gaza ceasefire, as per the agreement signed in August 2014.

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