Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi. Photo: wiki commons.

Hours after Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi said that an expansion of his country’s military forces in the Sinai Peninsula “does not threaten anyone” in the Middle East, and he expressed a commitment to the peace treaty between Israel and Egypt, Morsi was informally invited to Israel by the Jewish state’s foreign minister.

“Peace must be expressed,” Avigdor Lieberman said at a legal conference in Tel Aviv. “That’s why I hope to see President Morsi inviting official Israeli representatives, visiting Jerusalem as a guest of President Peres, and being interviewed by the Israeli media.”

Earlier in the day, while speaking with Reuters, Morsi reiterated his position that the peace treaty signed in 1979, which has brought a relative amount of stability between the Arab world’s most populous state, and Israel, was not in jeopardy under his leadership.

With respect to Bashar Assad in Syria, Morsi made his position clear that he expects the Syrian president to leave power.

“There is no room to talk about reform, but the discussion is about change,” he said.