{"id":205364,"date":"2016-04-09T06:30:29","date_gmt":"2016-04-09T06:30:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/?p=205364"},"modified":"2016-04-09T06:30:29","modified_gmt":"2016-04-09T06:30:29","slug":"saudi-arabia-egypt-announce-red-sea-bridge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=205364","title":{"rendered":"Saudi Arabia and Egypt announce Red Sea bridge"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"story-body__introduction\">Saudi Arabia&#8217;s king has announced that a bridge linking the country to Egypt will be built over the Red Sea.<\/p>\n<p>King Salman said in a statement that the bridge would boost commerce between the two allies.<\/p>\n<p>He made the announcement during the second day of his visit to the Egyptian capital, Cairo.<\/p>\n<p>Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries have supported Egypt with billions of dollars since President Sisi took power in 2013 following mass street protests.<\/p>\n<p>Saudi Arabia regards Egypt as a crucial partner in efforts to build a bloc of friendly Sunni Muslim states as a bulwark against growing regional influence of Shia-led Iran.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"media-landscape no-caption full-width\"><span class=\"image-and-copyright-container\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"responsive-image__img js-image-replace aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/ichef-1.bbci.co.uk\/news\/624\/cpsprodpb\/A04A\/production\/_89143014_redsea.jpg\" alt=\"map red sea\" width=\"976\" height=\"520\" data-highest-encountered-width=\"624\" \/><\/span><\/figure>\n<p>King Salman&#8217;s visit comes amid recent strains in the relationship, with President Sisi taking a less hardline stance against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Riyadh seeking more support from Cairo for its war against rebels in Yemen.<\/p>\n<p>Egyptian President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi said the bridge would be named after the Saudi king.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I agreed with my brother his Excellency President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi to build a bridge connecting the two countries&#8221; the king said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This historic step to connect the two continents, Africa and Asia, is a qualitative transformation that will increase trade between the two continents to unprecedented levels&#8221; he added.<\/p>\n<p>President Sisi said it marked &#8220;a new chapter on the road of Arab joint action&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>A Red Sea bridge linking the two countries has been proposed several times before but has failed to become a reality.<\/p>\n<p>Previous estimates for the bridge project suggested a cost of around $3-4bn (\u00a32-3bn), but no further information has yet been released for the latest plan.<\/p>\n<p>King Salman is currently on a five-day visit to Egypt, where he is expected to announce more trade and co-operation agreements.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;<\/p>\n<p>Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Saudi Arabia&#8217;s king has announced that a bridge linking the country to Egypt will be built over the Red Sea. King Salman said in a statement that the bridge would boost commerce between the two allies. He made the announcement during the second day of his visit to the Egyptian capital, Cairo. Saudi Arabia and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[107],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-205364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-international"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205364","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=205364"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205364\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=205364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=205364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=205364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}