Egypt: Position on Iran unchanged
Cairo seeks to temper reports that it is perusing an upgrade to its relations with Tehran
Cairo sought Saturday to temper Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi's statements regarding Iran and Egypt's "strategic partnership," saying that the latter's baseline position on the former remains unchanged.
Morsi arrived in Tehran on Thursday, for the first visit by an Egyptian leader to Iran in over three decades.
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He was the guest of honor at the Tehran-hosted Non-Aligned Movement summit, which is attended by 120 nations.
According to Egyptian newspaper Al-Masri Al-Yum, the meeting between Morsi and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Thursday did not focus on upgrading the two nations' diplomatic relations, or even on normalizing them, but rather focused only on regional issues and Syria.
Morsi and Ahmadinejad at NAM (Photo: AFP)
A statement by presidential spokesman Yasser Ali said that the Egyptian president told his Iranian counterpart that "Public opinion in the Arab world is that the aid lent to Syria by Iran is marginalizing it from the Arab world.
"Just as the Arab nations supports the Iranian people's desire for change when the shah was using his tanks against them, so we must now respect the (Syrian) people's desire for change."
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