Khatami hopes to end oddity with Egypt
Egypt-Iran, Politics, 12/24/2003

The Iranian President Muhammad Khatami has expressed hope that the current negotiations with Egypt will have fruitful results that will pave the way to resume the severed relations between the two countries since 1979.

Khatami told reports after submitting the draft budget before the Shoura council that both Iran and Egypt want to eliminate obstacles, and put an end to severed relations. He expressed his hope that current negotiations will be conducive to eliminating the fears of the Egyptian side.

He added he had met with the Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on the sideline of the UN recent summit in Geneva, at the request of the latter, and not the opposite as Mubarak had announced.

Iran extended the invitation to Mubarak to take part in the economic summit, which is held by the 8 developing countries, which includes Turkey, Pakistan, Egypt, Nigeria, Iran, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Bangladesh, in Tehran on February, 2004.

However, the Egyptian weekly al-Musawar announced on Wednesday that normalization of relations between Cairo and Tehran, and Mubarak's meeting at Tehran's invitation, is linked to removing the name and picture of Khaled Islambuli who killed the former Egyptian President Anwar al- Sadat in 1981 in one of the Iranian capital streets.

The magazine considered that Egypt and Iran are two regional forces that their role cannot be neglected in the Middle East, and that the decrease of Iraq's role, even if temporary, from the balance of forces in the region, makes it necessary for the two countries to hold bilateral strong relations.

Relations between the two countries have been improved in recent years, and there is in each of Cairo and Tehran an office for supervising interests.

In typical fashion that keeps the region in a state of endless differences over trivialities that are exploited by outsiders, to divide and conquer, the two countries are always willing to explore reconciliation with outsiders, but not make such strong effortd between themselves, with Egypt accusing Iran of sheltering "Egyptian terrorists" belonging to armed Islamist organizations, as well as honoring al-Islambuli by giving him one the name of a street of the capital Tehran. Iran blamed Cairo for receiving Iran's Shah following the launching of the Islamic revolution.

Previous Stories:
  Khatami: Egyptian-Iranian viewpoints on Iraq, Palestine very close   (12/15/2003)
  Invitation for Mubarak to visit Iran Khatami: there are still differences   (12/15/2003)
  First Egyptian- Iranian summit in a quarter century   (12/11/2003)

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