As part of Saudi efforts to broker an end to the 18-month standoff over Doha's support of the Muslim Brotherhood, Egyptian and Qatari intelligence officials met in Cairo to discuss a possible reconciliation, two days after the Doha-based Al-Jazeera satellite station shut down its Egypt channel.
Security sources said Qatar's intelligence chief, Ahmed Nasser Bin Jassim al-Thani, discussed plans for a meeting between the Egyptian and Qatari heads of state in Riyadh next month.
While Gulf countries agreed to normalize ties with Qatar, Cairo has yet to follow.
Gulf Arab countries agreed in November to end an eight-month dispute with Qatar over its promotion of "Arab Spring" revolts and support of Islamist groups.
Saudi Arabia, which has showered Egypt's government with billions of dollars in aid over the past year-and-a-half, has pushed for a similar rapprochement between Qatar and Egypt.
Qatar was a backer of elected Egyptian President Mohammed Mursi of the Muslim Brotherhood. Ties between the two countries deteriorated after then-army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi overthrew Mursi last year and cracked down on the Brotherhood.
To Egypt's irritation, Qatar sheltered exiled Brotherhood leaders, including influential Egypt-born preacher and spiritual guide of the Brotherhood, Yousef al-Qaradawi.
Qaradawi regularly launches tirades against Egypt's authorities since the army ousted Mursi. He is named as a defendant in several trials along with many Brotherhood members, including one which has Mursi as a co-defendant.
- Egypt, alongside Saudi Arabia and the UAE, list the Brotherhood as a terrorist organization and consider it a threat to their ruling systems.
The two Gulf countries, as well as Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait, are members of the US-led coalition against Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
Critics opposed to US involvement in the conflict with ISIS have pointed out that Washington, in partnership with its Gulf allies, especially Saudi Arabia, played a role in the formation and expansion of extremist groups like ISIS by arming, financing and politically empowering armed opposition groups in Syria and Libya.
