Ambassador Menha Ba-khoum, the spokeswoman for the Egyptian Foreign Ministry, said last week, “We look at Iran as a neighbor in the region that we should have normal relations with. Iran is not perceived as an enemy, as it was under the previous regime, and it is not perceived as a friend.”
That was hardly a grand endorsement of the government in Tehran.
But days later, Egyptian Foreign Minister Nabil Elaraby gave an interview to The Washington Post and modified that statement significantly. “They are not an enemy,” he said. “If you want me to say it: Iran is not an enemy. We have no enemies. Anywhere.”
He dropped the comment that Iran was not a friend. The Washington Post did not ask him why he changed the wording used by his spokeswoman a week earlier.
But Elaraby did stick to the theme that Egypt was not cozying up to Iran and was merely looking for the routine and standard relationship.
The Post said, “You recently said Egypt intends to normalize relations with Iran.”
Elaraby swiftly interrupted. “No, never. I said Egypt has turned a page with every country in the world. I never specified Iran. [I was] asked if this included Iran, and I said yes. We don’t want to look backwards. We want to look forward. No decision has been made on Iran. Every country in this world has relations with Iran except three—the US, Egypt and Israel,” he said.
Some American political figures and many Arabs in the Persian Gulf have complained angrily about a change in Egyptian policy on Iran.
“This concept of opening up and turning a new page does not affect our relations with the United States—or anyone,” he said. “Your closest friends and allies—the UK and France and Germany—all have diplomatic relations with Iran. I don’t see the problem.”
He could also have added that all seven Arab states on the Persian Gulf also have diplomatic relations with Iran while many of them have complained about Egypt seeking to normalize its ties with Iran.
The two countries actually have low-level relations—just not at the ambassadorial level. In 1979, Iran severed all relations with Egypt over its signing of a peace treaty with Israel. But in 1991, the two countries opened trade offices staffed by diplomats.
No one has asked Elaraby why two months have passed and relations with Iran have still not been upgraded to the ambassadorial level. Elaraby did not say if Egypt was setting any conditions for upgrading relations. The previous government said Iran would have to change the name of a street in Tehran that is named after the assassin who killed Egyptian President Anwar Sadat.
The Associated Press reported Saturday that the nephew of that assassin had returned to Egypt for the first time in two decades. Khaled el-Islambouli had been living in exile in Tehran. He is not wanted by the Egyptian government, but his father is being sought for involvement in terrorist attacks in Egypt in the 1990s.