Egyptian Foreign Minister Nabil al-Arabi sat down with Mojtaba Amani, the head of Iran’s Interests Section in Cairo, the announcement said. Amani brought a written message from Iranian Foreign Minister Ali-Akbar Salehi.
It appears that the formal re-establishment of diplomatic relations could be imminent. But that was also true in 2003 and everything fell apart then.
Arabi took over as Egypt’s foreign minister a few weeks ago after the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak, who was hardnosed about resuming ties. In one of his first statements as foreign minister, Arabi publicly advocated a resumption of ties.
The countries have not had full diplomatic relations since 1980, when the Islamic Republic severed ties because Egypt had signed a peace treaty with Israel. In the 1980s, Iran often said it would never resume ties with Egypt until Egypt severed all ties with Israel. But it later dropped that talk and eagerly courted Egypt. President Ahmadi-nejad said a few years ago that he would send an ambassador to Egypt that afternoon if Egypt just said it wanted to resume ties.
In an interview last week, Arabi said, “The Egyptian government doesn’t consider Iran to be an enemy state. We’re opening a new page with all countries, including Iran.” He said the next steps were up to Iran. Salehi then responded with his message to Arabi that Amani delivered Monday.
Egypt said Salehi proposed that either he visit Cairo or Arabi come to Iran to formalize the steps to resume relations.
Mubarak’s government had demanded that Iran change the name of a street in Tehran named after the assassin of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. The Tehran City Council voted to change the name in December 2003, and the formal resumption of ties appeared imminent. But nothing happened.
The street signs have never been changed. It isn’t known what Arabi’s position is on the street signs.
Mubarak and other Egyptian officials frequently said full diplomatic relations could not be restored so long as there was a street in Tehran named Khaled Islambouli Avenue after the man who shot and killed Mubarak’s predecessor in 1981.
In December 2003, the City Council changed Islambouli to Intifada Avenue to honor the Palestinian uprising and make clear that the street was still ideologically pure and revolutionary.
A name change is purely academic to Tehranis who have never called the street Islambouli Avenue and are very unlikely ever to call it Intifada Avenue in daily use. Before being named Islambouli, the street was known as Vezara (Cabinet Ministers) Avenue and that is what Tehranis still call it.
It is not uncommon for Tehran streets to be known to the public by their names from the Qajar Dynasty, as citizens opt for consistency and ignore the renamings of both the Pahlavi and Islamic Republic eras.
At least one other Tehran street bares a very controversial name. Bobby Sands Street runs passed the British embassy and is named for a member of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) who opposed British rule in Northern Ireland and died on a prison hunger strike. The British government has simply ignored that street name and not made an issue of it.