Egypt’s Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi said in his first ever TV interview that the first country he would visit if he were elected president was Saudi Arabia.

The oil-rich Gulf kingdom was a strong advocate of the removal of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi and his political group the Muslim Brotherhood last July. The country has also lent its support – political and financial – to the post-Morsi roadmap implemented by Egypt's interim authorities, providing petrol and bank deposits along with the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait.

Presidential candidate El-Sisi appeared in a two part interview with co-hosts Ibrahim Eissa and Lamis El-Hadidi.