Iranian Foreign Minister Ali-Akbar Salehi announced Saturday that he had invited Egyptian Foreign Minister Nabil al-Arabi to Tehran. “We are ready to welcome him in Tehran, and we are prepared to make a trip to Cairo as well,” said Salehi in response to al-Arabi’s offer tom restore ties. “The consultations are underway in this regard.”
The head of the Supreme Council of the Egyptian armed forces, the leader of Egypt since President Hosni Mubarak’s ouster, has also endorsed the restoration of diplomatic ties, showing that the idea is not confined to the Foreign Ministry.
“We hope that the upcoming stage would be a stage of special bilateral relations with the Islamic Republic of Iran, serving the best interests of both countries,” said Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi in an interview with the German magazine Der Spiegel.
But some in both countries disagree. Some Egyptians fear an increased Iranian presence will promote fundamentalist Islamic rule in their country. In Iran, some strong revolutionaries are revolted by the thought of ties.
Members of Egypt’s Supreme Council of the Armed Forces were quoted Al Masry Al Youm newspaper as saying, “Egypt will not be ruled by another Khomeini.”
“The Council will not allow extremist factions to control Egypt,” said Deputy Defense Minister Mohammed Mokhtar al-Mella.
The comments followed attacks on Christians and liquor stores by militants trying to impose strict Islamic law. The growing presence of the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafi groups in politics is worrying some.
In Tehran, the spokesman for the Majlis National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, Kazem Jalali, said Iran should proceed with caution. “We should not act hastily in resuming ties with Egypt and we should follow a logical process,” he told state-run ISNA.
Referencing the breakdown of relations following Egypt’s signing of the peace treaty in 1978 with Israel, Jalali said, “They feared that the voice of the Islamic revolution would be strengthened inside Egypt, so they tried to create Iranophobia in Egypt.”
Similar arguments were published earlier this month in the hardline daily Jomhuri Eslami. The editorial quoted an order from Ayatollah Khomeini it described as “one of the sources of pride for the Islamic revolution and the leadership in the foreign policy sector,” that called for the severing of ties because Egypt signed the “treacherous treaty.”
The editorial argued that while the government that signed the treaty was overthrown, “the infrastructure of the dictatorial regime still remains and the post-Mubarak regime is moving toward a military government.” The Iranian government should not proceed to re-establish ties until the Egyptian people have been able to institute a democratic rule since any other move “lacks insight and political experience.”
At this time, Egyptians “are exposed to Zionist worms like an unripe fruit, their fate is not yet ruled by their national will, the people have not tasted any free elections, and they have not prepared their favored constitution.”
Despite these comments, such opposition to restoring diplomatic relations seems to be a minority in both countries and Iranian and Egyptian officials started talks in Cairo last week.