Egypt's Mubarak meets top Iranian official as ties improve

Jan 31, 2008, 16:44 GMT

Cairo - Egyptian President Hosny Mubarak met Thursday with Ali Akbar Natik Nuri, top advisor of Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, in a further indication that severed ties may be soon resumed.

'There are economic relations between both countries, which are acceptable. But we want our political ties to be better and at a higher level,' Nuri said after talks with Mubarak.

The speaker of Iranian parliament, Gholam Hadad, met Mubarak Wednesday and equally hoped for stronger ties and spoke about improving relations, which were cut off by the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979.

Both Nuri and Hadad are in Cairo, on landmark visit, to attend the conference of parliamentarians from Islamic countries.

The main reason for the decades-long animosity is Egypt's peace treaty with Israel. Cairo also gave sanctuary to the deposed Shah of Iran, a move that angered Tehran.

The officials' visit is seen as another indication of a thaw in bilateral relations. Officials from both countries have recently exchanged visits, crowned with a visit to Egypt by Ali Larijani, the former Iranian nuclear negotiator, in December.

A landmark phone call between Presidents Mubarak and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad last week gave more strength to the possibility of an imminent resumption of ties.

Both countries have been trying to restore ties since 2003 but Iran has not responded to Egypt's demand for it to remove a mural in Tehran commemorating Khalid al-Islambouli, one of the Islamist killers of former Egyptian president Anwar al-Sadat in 1981.

Iran has also been reluctant to rename a Tehran street named after Sadat's killer.

Nuri and Hadad downplayed this issue's importance saying it did stand in the way of normalizing ties.

Hadad suggested that Iran was not to blame for ties not having resumed. 'President Ahmadinejad said he was prepared to resume ties the next day. This is a good enough, clear-cut answer,' he said.

Egypt's security concerns remain the reason for not restoring ties, local media reports say.

Iran has been often accused of fomenting unrest in the region and sponsoring radical groups, especially in Lebanon, Iraq and the Hamas- run Gaza Strip.

Egyptian leaders fear that resuming ties with Tehran may give it a foothold in their country and increase its regional clout, analysts say.