"Egyptian Foreign Minister reassured India, Egypt must work together...": NCP-SCP MP Supriya Sule

Cairo [Egypt], June 4 (ANI): Nationalist Congress Party (Sharadchandra Pawar) MP Supriya Sule, who is leading the all-party delegation to Egypt, said on Tuesday that the group held a constructive meeting with Egypt's Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty. He reassured them that India and Egypt need to work together in peace, trade, and culture, as the two nations are uniquely placed. 

While interacting with local leaders, opinion makers, and think tanks in Cairo, Sule expressed gratitude to Egyptian leadership for standing firmly with India during the challenging and painful time and expressed his commitment to peace. He said that India launched Operation Sindoor under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. She said that PM Modi sent seven groups of parliamentary delegations to several nations.

She said, "Under the leadership of our Prime Minister, we had Operation Sindoor, and as a part of the operation, this is an activity which the honourable Prime Minister wanted all of us to do is we have come here not as just members of parliament or ideologies. We have come as Indians here to tell the world what has really happened in India 5 weeks ago. As we are aware, the world has changed, technology has changed our lives, so it is social media, media, and the kind of information that's going around, some of it factual, some of it deep fake. So, the honourable Prime Minister made 7 groups, each group with five members of parliament, and sent them to 4 to 5 countries in the last 10 days. All these 7 groups have travelled the globe and reached out to various countries which are friends like Egypt, and I have only gratitude in my heart because the Egyptian leadership is one of the few countries which reached out to Prime Minister Modi and reassured and stood very firmly with us during our challenging, painful times and said they would condemn any such attack, and Egypt is committed to peace and would not tolerate any terrorism anywhere in the world."

"After that, the honourable Minister of External Affairs reached out to our minister not once but twice. We had the honour and pleasure of meeting him this morning, and he reassured us that Egypt and India need to work together. Be it in the mission of peace, trade, or culture, because we are uniquely placed as two countries, our civilisation. Even the seven wonders of the world, you have one, and we have one. So culturally, civilisation, we have so many things in common. So the take-home for us when we leave Egypt is we are overwhelmed with the warmth, friendship, and love we have received in the last two days," she added. 

Supriya Sule noted that the delegation's visit to Egypt comes at an extraordinarily challenging time in India. She recalled how 26 innocent civilians were killed in a terrorist attack in Jammu and Kashmir's Pahalgam on April 22. 

"This trip has come as an extraordinary challenging time in India. 5 weeks ago, there was an attack on India's soul, where 26 innocent Indians who were on vacation, celebrating things, were shot at in front of their Spouses, children, and it's been an extraordinary, traumatising time for all of us in India, Mahatma Gandhi's India. India is a peace-loving country that believes in peace, harmony, and growth for all," she said.

Highlighting the efforts made by the Indian government to normalise ties with Pakistan, Supriya Sule said, "When this attack happened, clearly, it came as a surprise and a shock to all of us because our Prime Minister, when he first took oath in 2014, He made an effort which was a part of continuity earlier we had Prime Minister Manmohan Singh ji for 10 years, who was one of the finest leaders India has seen who reached out to all the countries, and as you're all aware, governance is continued. So, we have made sure that what Atal Bihari Vajpayee did as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh ji and now Prime Minister Modi ji."

"And for his oath ceremony, we invited India invited all the neighbours because it was a new beginning of a new leader and it was an outreach programme where he reached out, he invited all of them to India for the oath ceremony, and we believed that we would all work together and make sure it's a growing continent and would show peace to the whole world. So when this attack happened, data clearly showed and the evidence showed that this attack was not from very far but just our immediate neighbour, which was very unfortunate and painful for us," she added. 

On Tuesday, Supriya Sule met Egypt's Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty in the New Administrative Capital. After the meeting concluded, Badr Abdelatty condemned the terrorist attack in Jammu and Kashmir's Pahalgam that claimed the lives of 26 civilians and said that such attacks can't be tolerated.

Labelling the relationship between India and Egypt as "historic," Abdelatty added that Egypt and India need to enhance their economic relationship to match the excellent political relationship between the two countries and their leaders."It was a great pleasure to receive the Parliamentary delegation from India...our relationship is historic. But, we need to enhance further our trade investment and economic relationship to match the excellent political relationship between the two countries and their leaders...our position is very clear: we condemn, in the harshest words, the terrorist attack in Kashmir. We cannot tolerate any attacks on civilians," the Egyptian minister told ANI.

The delegation, led by Supriya Sule, includes Rajiv Pratap Rudy, Vikramjeet Singh Sahney, Manish Tewari, Anurag Singh Thakur, Lavu Sri Krishna Devarayalu, Anand Sharma, V Muraleedharan and Syed Akbaruddin.

The Supriya Sule-led parliamentary delegation also paid a floral tribute to Indian soldiers at the Heliopolis War Memorial, who laid their lives in World War I and World War II.

The delegation aims to brief international partners on India's response to the April 22 Pahalgam terror attack and its broader fight against cross-border terrorism while engaging with leaders in key countries. (ANI)