Abbas to visit Cairo on Sunday

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas will visit Cairo on Sunday, the first time since the military deposed Islamist president Mohammed Morsi earlier this month.

According to a Kuwaiti media report, Abbas is scheduled to meet with interim President Adly Mansour and other senior Egyptian officials. The trip would be the second made by a foreign leader since the July 3 military coup.

Jordanian King Abdullah II visited Egypt last week and met Mansour and Chief of Staff Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, and voiced his support for the country’s “national choices.”

According to the al-Jarida report, among the matters Abbas will discuss with Egyptian officials is the precarious security situation in the Sinai Peninsula, which has deteriorated significantly since the coup, as well as the issue of cross-border smuggling tunnels.

In recent weeks, Egypt’s interim government has imposed the toughest border restrictions on the Hamas-run Gaza Strip in years, sealing smuggling tunnels, blocking most passenger traffic and causing millions of dollars in economic losses.

The Palestinian leader will also talk with Cairo about the ongoing Palestinian reconciliation negotiations, which Egypt has moderated over the past several years, and US Secretary of State John Kerry’s announcement last week of a restart of negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.

Abbas’s office wasn’t immediately available to respond to reports of the president’s trip to Cairo.