SA Navy Chief visits Egyptian counterpart
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The Chief of the SA Navy, Vice Admiral Monde Lobese, has met his Egyptian counterpart during a visit to the North African nation.
Lobese was in Egypt from 7 to 10 January and whilst there engaged with the Chief of the Egyptian Navy, Vice Admiral Ashraf Ibrahim Atwa. The visit was meant to forge mutually beneficial relations between navies.
During the visit, Lobese and his delegation were given tours of some of the Egyptian Navy’s establishments, including the Alexandria Arsenal Company, Naval Special Units and the Maritime College. “The SA Navy delegation was impressed with the training offered, infrastructure, technological advancements and level of professionalism shown,” the SA Navy said.
During their discussions, the Chiefs of both navies undertook to continue to explore viable ways in which the two navies could work together. “These endeavours could translate into combined naval exercises, ship visits, training programme exchanges, technical expertise benchmarking and through the chairing and hosting of continental maritime seminars such as the Sea Power for Africa Symposium,” the SA Navy said.
It added that the visit was the first in more than 25 years between the two navies and also an outcome of discussions between the two Chiefs when they met during the Russian Anniversary Parade the previous year in St Petersburg.
The two Chiefs promised to continue to foster the relations between the two navies and were anticipating a return visit by the Egyptian Navy in the near future.
