CAIRO, June 22 (Xinhua) -- Egypt appreciated Portugal's proposal to help confront the issue of refugees and immigrants, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry said in a press statement on Friday.
"Lisbon recently proposed to resettle some 400 Egypt-based refugees in Portugal during 2018-2019 in full cooperation and coordination with the national parties concerned in Egypt," the statement said.
The Cairo-Lisbon cooperation comes within the framework of the current institutional dialogue between Egypt and the European Union on resettling refugees living in Egypt, Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ahmed Abu Zeid said.
On the basis of recommendations of a meeting between the two countries in December 2017, Britain, Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands have resettled hundreds of refugees, Abu Zeid added.
In early July, a team from Foreigners and Borders Service, a police service affiliated to the Portuguese government, visited Egypt for the first time to interview candidates among more than 1,000 people who applied for resettlement during this year and the next year in Portugal.
According to a statement of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, nearly 5 million refugees have been settling in Egypt.
