June 20, 2025
carries a large piece of artwork picturing and
extolling the virtues of President Sadat’s assassin.
The Islamic Republic is once again actively seeking to resume relations with Egypt—and may change the name of a street in northern Tehran in an effort to impress Cairo.
The street was known as Vozara Avenue before the Islamic Revolution. Egyptian President Anwar Sadat was assassinated in 1981, and the Islamic Republic then renamed Vozara Avenue as Martyr Khalid al-Islambuli Avenue in honor of the assassin.
This has long infuriated the Egyptian government, and news reports several years ago said Cairo had told Tehran it would not even consider resuming relations until the assassin’s name was taken off the street.
The Tehran City Council announced June 10 that it had decided to rename the street but hadn’t yet decided on a new name. The City Council said several suggestions for a new name were being considered. The Tasnim news agency said one option under consideration was naming the street after Hassan Nasrallah, the late leader of the Lebanese Hezbollah, who was killed some months ago in Beirut in an Israeli bombing.
Iran severed diplomatic relations with Egypt in 1980 after President Sadat gave sanctuary to Mohammad Reza Shah shortly after he fled the revolution in January 1979. The Shah moved to other temporary lodgings until eventually returning to Cairo where he died in July 1980 and is buried in the city’s Rifai Mosque.
Every few years, the Islamic Republic has tried to resume relations with Cairo. The Egyptian government receives diplomatic visitors politely—Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi was just there—but does not show any particular interest in renewed relations, though the reasons for its distance are not apparent.
