Egypt's Islamist President Wants Close Ties with Iran
Monday, 25 Jun 2012 06:05 AM
Egypt's Islamist President-elect Mohammed Morsi has said he wants to restore long-severed ties with Tehran to create a strategic "balance" in the region, in an interview published on Monday with Iran's Fars news agency.
Morsi's comments may unsettle Western powers as they seek to isolate Iran over its disputed nuclear programme, which they suspect it is using to build atomic bombs. Tehran denies this.
Diplomatic relations between Egypt and Iran were severed more than 30 years ago, but both countries have signalled a shift in policy since former president Hosni Mubarak was toppled last year in a popular uprising.
"We must restore normal relations with Iran based on shared interests, and expand areas of political coordination and economic cooperation because this will create a balance of pressure in the region," Morsi was quoted as saying in a transcript of the interview.
Rivalry between Sunni Muslim Saudi Arabia and Shi'ite giant Iran has been intensified by "Arab Spring" revolts, which have redrawn the political map of the Middle East and left the powerful Gulf neighbours vying for influence.
Fars said it had spoken to Morsi a few hours before the result of the vote was announced on Sunday.
Asked to comment on reports that, if elected, his first state visit would be to Riyadh, Morsi said: "I didn't say such a thing and until now my first international visits following my victory in the elections have not been determined".
Iran subsequently hailed Morsi's victory over former general Ahmed Shafik in Egypt's first free presidential election as a "splendid vision of democracy" that marked the country's final phase of an "Islamic Awakening".
The West, Gulf states and Israel reacted with caution to the result, welcoming the democratic process that led to Morsi's election, but stressing that Egypt's stability was their main priority.
CAMP DAVID REVIEW
In contrast to comments he made in a televised address after his victory was announced on Sunday, Fars news quoted Morsi as saying Egypt's Camp David peace accord with Israel "will be reviewed", without elaborating.
The peace treaty remains a lynchpin of U.S. Middle East policy and, despite its unpopularity with many Egyptians, was staunchly upheld by Mubarak, who also suppressed the Muslim Brotherhood movement to which Morsi belongs.
The Sunni Brotherhood, whose Palestinian offshoot Hamas rules the Gaza Strip, is vehemently critical of Israel, which has watched the rise of Islamists and ongoing political upheaval in neighbouring Egypt with growing concern.
Egypt's formal recognition of Israel and Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution led to the breakdown of diplomatic relations in 1980. The two countries - among the biggest and most influential in the Middle East - still have reciprocal interest sections, but not at ambassadorial level.
Egypt's foreign minister said last year that Cairo was ready to re-establish diplomatic relations with Iran, which has hailed most Arab Spring uprisings as anti-Western rebellions inspired by its own Islamic Revolution.
Yet Iran has steadfastly supported Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Tehran's closest Arab ally, who is grappling with a revolt against his rule, and at home has continued to reject demands for reform, which spilled onto the street following the disputed re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2009.
© 2012 Thomson/Reuters. All rights reserved.
Egypt's Islamist President Wants Close Ties with Iran
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Egypt's new government ready to renew country's ties with Iran
Apr 6, 2011
It is a street that symbolises three decades of animosity between two of the Middle East's oldest, proudest and most powerful rival civilisations.
Khaled Islambouli Avenue in a leafy, upmarket area of central Tehran was named in honour of an Egyptian army officer turned jihadi militant. Islambouli assassinated the Egyptian president Anwar Sadat in 1981, three years after Sadat signed the Arab world's first peace treaty with Israel.
Now Egypt's transitional new government says it is ready to re-establish diplomatic ties with Iran. If an agreement is clinched, the diplomatic repercussions will reverberate across the Middle East and beyond.
An historic rapprochement between Tehran and Cairo would concern the Arab world, unnerve Israel and dismay the United States, which has been striving to isolate Iran because of its nuclear programme.
Iran would hail a breakthrough with Egypt as the first concrete gain it has reaped from the pro-democracy unrest gripping much of the Arab world. The changing regional tide, Iran already argues, is in its favour.
Farideh Farhi, an Iran expert at the University of Hawaii, said: "Re-establishment of ties with Egypt would be very significant for Iran, particularly in the light of deteriorating relations with Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states. Iran has been trying to re-establish relations with Cairo for several years in order to counter its attempted isolation by the US."
Within a year of Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution, the new regime in Tehran severed ties with Egypt in protest at Egypt's 1978 Camp David peace treaty with the "Zionist entity".
Tehran was also furious that Egypt had given asylum to Iran's ousted dictator, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who died of cancer in 1980 and was buried in Cairo.
But Egypt's new foreign minister, Nabil Elaraby, signalling a potentially dramatic shift in Iran policy after the removal of the Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, said: "The Egyptian and Iranian people deserve to have mutual relations reflecting their history and civilisation."
Mr Mubarak was viscerally mistrustful of Iran, where he was derided as "an American puppet" and a calcified "pharaoh". He saw Iran as "the greatest strategic threat to the Middle East", according to a US diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks.
But Mr Elaraby insists that Egypt does not consider Tehran an enemy, and says Cairo is "opening a new page with all countries, including Iran".
Stoking Israel's concerns, Mr Elaraby added that Hizbollah was part of Lebanon's political and social fabric, and that Egypt welcomed contacts with the Iranian-backed Lebanese organisation.
Mr Elaraby's outreach was hailed by his Iranian counterpart, Ali Akbar Salehi. Congratulating the Egyptian people on their "victorious" revolution, he said: "A good relationship between our countries will definitely help stability, security and development in the region."
The new Egypt, it seems, has taken a leaf from Turkey's foreign policy model: fostering good relations with neighbours and reaching out to both East and West.
Iran will, however, remain deeply suspicious of Egyptian motives.
"One of the reasons the Egyptians [are proffering an olive branch] is to use relations with Iran to improve their position regarding both Israel and the US," said Meir Javedanfar, an Iranian-born analyst in Israel.
He believes that ties between Tehran and Cairo will improve. "But it's unlikely in the long run that this will turn into a strong strategic alliance because they will not be able to overcome the age-old divide between Sunni Arabs versus Persian Shiites," he said.
Other experts have also to be convinced that Cairo is ready for a "fully normalised relationship" with Tehran.
Egypt's interim military government could well be using its flirtation with Iran as a bargaining chip to send a message to the US "that it needs to ease pressure on human rights issues and continue financial support", Ms Farhi said.
Egypt's new government ready to renew country's ties with Iran - The National
Run Middle eastern countries and prolly write nothing but the truth as long as its the Truth is approved by the Higher ups.
