Egypt’s Foreign Minister Nabil Fahmy said on Saturday he was growing "skeptical" that an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal will be reached soon because of Israeli settlement building in the West Bank.

Egypt's Foreign Minister Nabil Fahmy said on Saturday he was growing "skeptical" that an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal will be reached soon because of Israeli settlement building in the West Bank.

Fahmy's comments, in an interview with AFP, came on the eve of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas's visit to Cairo and days after direct talks with the Zionist entity broke down over settlement construction.

US Secretary of State John Kerry visited the region again this week in his seventh trip to Israel and the West Bank to try to put the troubled Israeli-Palestinian peace talks back on track.

Abbas "essentially accepted a historic compromise between the Palestinians and the Israelis and is simply asking for a contiguous state with East Jerusalem as its capital," Fahmy said.

"We are worried, I would even add to it, to a degree skeptical, but committed to trying to help as much as we can," Fahmy said.

"Settlement activity is expanding and also going to the heart of the West Bank," he said.

In a different context, Fahmy said that Egypt will expand cooperation with Russia in the wake of a diplomatic spat with long-time ally the United States following president Mohammad Mursi's overthrow.

The foreign minister was speaking ahead of a visit on Wednesday by Russia's defense and foreign ministers to discuss arms sales and political relations.

Fahmy said strained relations with Washington, which suspended some of its massive military aid to Cairo after the army toppled Mursi, had improved with Secretary of State John Kerry's visit last Sunday.

But Egypt is taking a more "independent" tack and broadening its choices, he said.

"Independence is having choices. So the objective of this foreign policy is to provide Egypt with choices, more choices. So I'm not going to substitute. I'm going to add," he said.