CAIRO: A recent agreement to resume direct flights between Cairo and Tehran, for the first time in three decades, contradicts with a canceled visit by Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki to Egypt last month, experts say, agreeing that both countries are sending mixed signals.
Egypt’s Minister of Civil Aviation Ahmed Shafiq and Iranian Vice President and Head of Cultural Heritage and Tourism Organization Hamid Baghaei oversaw the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between both countries’ aviation officials.
Following talks in Egypt, Iran’s Deputy Civil Aviation Organization Hamid Ghavabesh told ISNA, “Based on an agreement with Egypt, every week 28 direct flights can be made between the two counties.”
Iran’s Fars News Agency also reported that an Egyptian businessman, Rami Lakah has announced an agreement worth $1.37 billion between his private airline company (Egyptian Mission) and Iran’s Kish Air Company for the next eight years.
Meanwhile, Egypt canceled a planned visit to Cairo last month by Mottaki, in protest against his criticism of Arab leaders for attending the new round of Middle East peace talks in Washington.
Mottaki accused Arab leaders who attended the recent Israeli-Palestinian peace talks in Washington of “betraying their nations.”
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and King Abdullah of Jordan were two of the main advocates of the direct peace talks between the two parties.
Mottaki was scheduled to meet with his Egyptian counterpart Ahmed Aboul Gheit regarding the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) conference, chaired by Egypt.
Emad Gad, analyst at Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, told Daily News Egypt that relations between the region’s two pivotal countries have been anything but smooth.
“The relationship between Tehran and Cairo is too complicated; many analysts and commentators have failed to explain the three-decade ‘rupture’ in Egyptian-Iranian relations, as no one can understand it out of its historical geopolitical context,” Gad said.
Gad is doubtful any major improvement in relations between both countries will occur, adding that Mottaki’s “irritating” statements were sure to widen the gap.
“I honestly believe that the conflict is getting deeper with time, especially with the current Iranian leadership that is taking more radical stances towards Egypt,” he said, “Egypt is clearly heading towards a direction dramatically different than that of Iran.”
Diplomatic ties
Tehran severed diplomatic ties with Cairo in 1979 after former president Anwar Sadat signed the Camp David Accords with Israel. Egypt further alienated the nascent Islamic Republic later the same year by granting political asylum to freshly deposed Shah Mohamed Reza Pahlavi.
Historically, however, Iran and Egypt maintained a distant but steady relationship; the latter waited until 1939 to upgrade its diplomatic representation into ambassadorial level, when Youssef Zulficar Pasha was appointed as Egypt’s first ambassador in Tehran.
In the same year, Princess Fawzia of Egypt, the sister of King Farouk, married Iran Shah Reza Pahlavi.
Moustafa Kamal, professor of political science at Cairo University, explained to Daily News Egypt that Egyptian relations with Iran deteriorated shortly after the 1952 revolution, President Gamal Abdel Nasser aligned with Soviet Union which as at odds with Pahlavi’s regime, who had strong ties with the United States.
Although ties regained momentum shortly during President Sadat’s era, the honeymoon did not last long — in 1979, Ayatollah Khomeini overthrew the shah and established the Islamic Republic of Iran.
“The new Iranian leaders strongly condemned the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty. The tension was exacerbated when Sadat sheltered the deposed shah in Egypt, which hindered both sides from reestablishing full diplomatic relations until now,” Kamal said.
Egyptian support for Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war was a new source of tension for both countries, leaving Egypt the only Arab country with no embassy in Tehran.
Mohammad Seleem Al-Awa, head of the Egyptian Association for Culture and Dialogue, said that Iranian foreign policy shifted following Khomeini’s death in 1989, and that particularly under the administration of Muhammad Khatemi, the revolutionary zeal cooled and a degree of pragmatism was adopted by Iranian policy makers.
Accordingly, recent years witnessed a significant development in the relationship between Egypt and Iran; Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit had said that “We seek to normalize relations with Tehran through constructive consultations.”
Trade
Moreover, despite strained relations between Cairo and Tehran over recent statements, Tehran showed willingness to export wheat to Egypt, the world’s largest wheat importer, in order to cover the deficit resulting from Russia’s temporary ban on grain exports.
“Iran is the 14th largest producer of wheat in the world,” Reda Adel, professor of economics at the Faculty of Commerce, told Daily News Egypt. He stressed that the Egyptian government did not object to Iranian imports and that the only restriction would be on quality and price.
According to official statistics, trade relations slowly improved during the 1990s, annual trade between Egypt and Iran has ranged between $3 million and $15 million over the course of the past two decades.
But such initiatives were quickly stalled, with both sides stressing the impracticality of rushing into a full diplomatic relationship.
According to analysts, the budding friendship was derailed when President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad refused to rename a main street in the capital named after Sadat’s assassin, Khaled Islambouli, which Egypt had long cited as a precondition for renewed diplomatic ties.
The relationship between the two countries suddenly deteriorated again in 2008, when the Iranian national television aired a film titled “Assassination of a Pharaoh,” glorifying the assassins of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat.
The Iranian film infuriated Egyptians, instigating condemnations from both parliament and Egypt’s leading Islamic institution Al-Azhar, which called for “burning the film, which affronts all Egyptians.”
Egyptians and Iranians speak out
On a wider scale, Egyptians are divided between those who support resuming full relations with an Islamic country and those who refuse the Iranian domination on the Arab world.
Ahmed Shdad, a doctor, told Daily News Egypt that, “The Iranian government views the conflict with other Arab countries from an ideological perspective, not as Arab vs Iranian but of Shia vs Sunni. We have to prevent the rising influence of Iran over its Arab allies such as Syria, Lebanon and Iraq.”
On the other hand, Mahmoud Belal, a student, believes that the United Sates and Western countries aspire to divide the Islamic world as a part of larger colonization plan.
“I think there is no problem in relations between both countries, there is no direct conflicting inserts, and we support Iran’s nuclear ambitions against the Israeli nuclear program.”
In an email interview, Iranian photographer Amir Mervie told Daily News Egypt that the Iranian people should thank Egypt for hosting the Shah.
“Being a supporter of change agent Mirhossein Mousavi, means to be open to reconcile with the world, and especially with your neighbors,” Mervie said.
