Mohammed Morsi. Photo: YouTube.

Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi is willing to meet with an Israeli leader, preferably President Shimon Peres, a senior Egyptian official told Israel Hayom, despite talk of a Muslim Brotherhood refusal to meet with Israeli officials until an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal is signed.

The Egyptian official said that if such a meeting were to take place, it would be in Washington, after the upcoming U.S. presidential elections. The objective would be to establish a new platform for more positive relations between the countries following a downturn resulting from the ouster of former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak in February 2011 and an assault on the Israeli Embassy in Cairo in September 2011.

According to the official, who recently accompanied Morsi on his visit to the UN General Assembly in New York, the president’s declaration to the assembly that Egypt would honor its international treaties, including its treaty with Israel, was a result of efforts by U.S. officials to bring Israel and Egypt closer together.

Meanwhile, the New York Times reported on Saturday that U.S. President Barack Obama had informed Congress he intended to transfer $450 million to Egypt immediately as part of the U.S. government’s pledge of $1 billion in aid after Mubarak’s regime collapsed. The move, however, was immediately opposed by Congress, which has refused to approve aid packages for a regime run by the Muslim Brotherhood.