CAIRO, March 25 -- Pakistan's justice minister arrived in Cairo Friday for a one week visit during which he is due to sign a bilateral agreement allowing extradition of criminals.
'I will sign an agreement with the Egyptian justice minister on combatting international terrorism and extradition of criminals between the two countries,' Pakistani Justice Minister Sayed Haidar told reporters on arrival.
The Cairo government is expected to discuss its demand that Islamabad extradite Egyptian and other Arab Muslim militants based in Pakistan and involved in a two-year-old violent campaign against the Egyptian government.
Cairo has sent delegations of senior law-enforcement officials to Pakistan in the past to discuss the extraditions. The Egyptian Interior Ministry said several suspected militants were extradited to Egypt earlier this year butdeclined to say where the suspects were extradited from.
Many of the Egyptian and Arab Muslim activists who had fought alongside Afghan Mujahideen fighters against Soviet occupation forces and the Moscow-backed marxist regime in Kabul in the 1980s stayed behind in Afghanistan and border areas of neighboring Pakistan.
Cairo claims that the activists, known as Arab-Afghans, have been involved in directing, arming and financing Muslim militant groups hoping to topple the Egyptian government and creating an Islamic state.
Since the militants waged their campaign in March 1992, nearly 350 people have died and more than 600 have been wounded in the violence, which has also seriously damaged the country's once lucrative tourism industry and subsequently affected its economy.
Because of the activities of those militants, who are said to be mainly based in the area of the border city of Peshawar, Pakistan was one of a few countries with which the Egyptian government had last year ordered restrictions on telephone contacts.
