Hishammuddin to make working visits to Turkey, Egypt starting Friday

The Malaysian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Wisma Putra) in a statement said Hishammuddin will be leading the Malaysian delegation to the two-day inaugural Antalya Diplomacy Forum in Antalya, Turkey to be officiated by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday.

"The Antalya Diplomacy Forum will explore the horizons of diplomacy across a range of key regional, global and thematic issues under the theme "Innovative Diplomacy: New Era, New Approaches".

"The Forum will be attended by leaders from more than 43 countries as well as policy-makers, diplomats and academics from all over the world," said the statement.

The statement said Hishammuddin will be a panelist for the session on "Regional Cooperation in Asia", and scheduled to have bilateral meetings on the sidelines of the Forum with his counterpart from Turkey and Palestine, Mevlut Cavusoglu and Riad Malki, respectively.

After the itineraries in Turkey, Hishammuddin will proceed with his working visit to Egypt from June 20-21 and this would be his first visit to the North African country.

During the visit, he is scheduled to pay a courtesy call on Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi and hold bilateral meeting with his counterpart, Sameh Hassan Shoukry.

"He will also have an engagement with the Chairman of the Suez Canal Special Economic Zone (SCZone)," it added.

The statement said Malaysia and Egypt enjoy close and vibrant relations, buoyed by substantive cooperation notably in the areas of trade, investment, education, tourism and religious affairs.

"Egypt is Malaysia's largest trading partner in North Africa. These engagements will further augment the turning point for reinvigoration of relations between Malaysia and Egypt," said the statement.

The working visits will be subjected to strict COVID-19 preventative standard operating procedure (SOP) as agreed upon by the Ministry of Health (MOH), National Security Council (NSC) as well as the relevant authorities of Turkey and Egypt.