UPDATE - Putin in Cairo for talks with Egypt counterpart

UPDATES WITH SIGNING OF NUKE ENERGY PLANT DEAL

By Mohamed al-Rayyes

CAIRO (AA) - Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi and Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on Monday signed a raft of bilateral agreements, including one for the construction -- with Russian assistance -- of Egypt’s first nuclear energy plant, according to Egyptian state media.

Putin arrived in Cairo earlier Monday to discuss means of enhancing bilateral cooperation and recent regional developments.

It is Putin’s second visit to Egypt since al-Sisi assumed power in mid-2014 on the back of a bloody military coup one year earlier.

Long on the drawing board, the 4,800-megawatt nuclear plant, to be built in Egypt’s northern city of Dabaa, is scheduled for completion within seven years.

Cairo and Moscow have drawn closer since al-Sisi came to power in 2014 following the ouster of his predecessor, Mohamed Morsi, Egypt’s first-ever freely elected president.

The burgeoning relationship hit a snag in late 2015, however, when Moscow suspended air flights to Egypt following the crash of a Russian passenger plane in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula.