Syria, Egypt Agree on Restoring Ties: Report

The Daily Star cited another Lebanese daily, Al-Akhbar, as reporting that Syria's National Security Bureau chief Ali Mamlouk visited Cairo last month where he met with President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi and other senior military, intelligence and security officials.

Al-Akhbar cited unnamed sources who described the visit as "successful," revealing that the two countries discussed ways to introduce security coordination between them to confront terrorism and political solutions to the four-year-long conflict in Syria.

The sources said that Mamlouk emphasized "the importance of granting a larger role for Cairo in the Syrian conflict."

Egyptian officials told Mamlouk that Cairo "sees only a political solution to the Syrian crisis," the report added.

"Cairo believes that the regimes of the two countries (Egypt and Syria) depend on the strength of their armies."

"As long as the (Syrian) army is [unified] then the state will stand, but the collapse of the military would indicate the (start of the) era of division the region..., thus confronting division starts with Syria," the sources continued.

The two countries also agreed on reactivating bilateral ties and restoring ambassadors, the report said, without elaborating.

Egypt's ousted president Mohammad Mursi, who was a strong backer of Syria's radical opposition, cut diplomatic ties with Damascus in June 2013. Mursi was removed from power in a military coup one month later by Sisi, who was the army chief at the time, but relations with Syria were never restored.

Mamlouk, according to Al-Akhbar, has also recently visited Oman's capital Muscat to seek Arab support to solve the Syrian conflict.

In August, Al-Akhbar and Al-Liwaa reported that Mamlouk had recently visited Jeddah and met with Saudi deputy Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman to discuss possible solutions to end the war.