Egyptian President Mohammad Mursi has received an invitation to the NAM summit in Tehran from the Iranian president’s deputy, Hamid Baghai, who visited him in Cairo.
The Los Angeles Times reports that: “Signaling a new era in Egypt’s diplomacy, President Mohamed Mursi met with Iran’s vice president Wednesday in the highest-level official contact between the two strategic nations in decades.”
Iran has had no official relations with Egypt since the Iranian Revolution in 1979 and the adoption of the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel.
Egypt’s longtime ruler Hosni Mubarak had rejected all Iranian offers to resume relations, but the new Egyptian government appears to be prepared to reconsider some of Egypt’s earlier foreign policies.
Iranian media reported that Mursi has announced that he is prepared to participate in the NAM summit in Tehran.
The Mehr News Agency reported that in his meeting with Mohammad Mursi, Baghai highlighted the “religious, cultural and historical commonalities of Iran and Egypt as great Islamic countries and stressed the need for unity and understanding between the two countries by developing bilateral relations.”
Mursi has reportedly emphasized the importance of the Iranian delegation’s trip to Egypt and expressed every hope that it would become the starting point of expanding relations between the two countries.
