CAIRO: Peace deals with Israel, security in the Middle East and battling the coronavirus pandemic were among the issues discussed by Egypt’s president and the crown prince of Abu Dhabi during talks in Cairo on Wednesday. During the visit by Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, it was agreed that the UAE would join the Eastern Mediterranean Gas Forum, as an observing state. The forum was established in September and includes Egypt, Israel, Greece, Cyprus, Italy and Jordan. It aims to promote natural gas exports and was formed a time of widespread condemnation of Turkish attempts to explore energy resources in the region. The forum met on Wednesday and signed a charter for the forum as an intergovernmental organization in September. The forum gives a formal status to a group that seeks to promote natural gas exports from the eastern Mediterranean. President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi said the UAE’s role in the forum would “serve strategic interests and strengthen cooperation” between the countries, the UAE state news agency WAM reported. Sisi also stressed Egypt’s commitment to Gulf security “as an extension of Egyptian national security and rejected any practices that seek to destabilize it.” The two sides discussed the recent agreements to establish relations between Israel and a number of Arab countries including the UAE and Bahrain. The two sides said the agreements help achieve “regional and global stability and security, and can lead to new horizons for relations between the countries of the region, development, construction and prosperity,” WAM reported.