An assistant to Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said on Monday that his country was willing to work with Egypt in all fields, in a sign of continuing rapprochement between the two countries since Mohamed Morsy’s election.
“Iran does not eye any site in Egypt, either of a religious or tourist nature, from a sectarian perspective,” said Iran’s assistant foreign minister, Hossein Amir Abdollahian, in a press statement during a visit to Cairo. “You [will] see the presence of Iranian tourists in Egypt to support its economy.”
Abdollahian added relations with Egypt in the industrial sector were “at their best.”
Though saying that his country never interferes in the domestic affairs of Arab states, Abdollahian said that Iran has “moral” influence with some.
The Iranian government also agreed Sunday that Egyptian tourists would no longer need visas to visit Iran, according to Iranian Mehr News.
Abdollahian’s comments come a day after the first direct flight between Cairo and Tehran since Iran’s Islamic Revolution 34 years ago. Egypt and Iran had agreed to more cooperation in the tourism sector during a visit by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in late February.
Relations between Cairo and Tehran were severed after Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution and Egypt’s signing of a peace treaty with Israel the same year, withformer President Anwar Sadat’s decision to grant asylum to deposed Iranian Shah Mohamed Reza Pahlavi fueling further animosity between the two.
The growing rapprochement has raised the ire of many hardline Sunni politicians and religious leaders in Egypt, who fear a growing Shia presence in mainly Sunni Egypt.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
