"On the right track"

EGYPTIAN Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher denied reports that Egypt and Iran would be restoring full diplomatic relations within a few days. "Relations between the two countries are on the right track but no decision has been taken for the moment for their renewal," Maher said on Tuesday. He added that "contacts are continuing between the two sides and [have been] progressing in the right direction" ever since a meeting took place between Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and his Iranian counterpart Mohamed Khatami in Geneva in December.

Maher's comments came in response to Iranian Vice President Mohamed Ali Abtahi telling the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera television network earlier on Tuesday that Iran and Egypt had decided to restore full diplomatic relations, and were expected do so within days. Abtahi was speaking after Tehran's city council decided to change the name of a street named after the assassin of late Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, thus removing a key sticking point between the two nations.

According to the official Iranian news agency IRNA, the Tehran City Council changed the name from Khaled Islambouli Street to Intifada Street. The decision is expected to catalyse better Egyptian-Iranian diplomatic ties after a 25-year diplomatic boycott.

Tehran broke diplomatic relations with Cairo in 1979 after Egypt was the first Arab country to sign a peace treaty with Israel. Low-level diplomatic ties were resumed in the late 1980s but remained tense, especially when Egypt sided with Iraq in its war against Iran.

IRNA quoted Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi as saying that the political climate between the two countries had "totally changed. Iran broke ties with Egypt in support of the Palestinian nation, but now all Palestinian groups would consider Iranian-Egyptian ties as support for them. Palestinians have called for a restoration of Tehran-Cairo ties".

Responding to an Egyptian request, presidents Hosni Mubarak and Mohamed Khatami held a meeting on the fringes of an IT summit in Geneva last month. Observers described the meeting as unprecedented and positive.

Iranian reformists supporting Khatami's policy of rapprochement had long called for changing the name of the street. Asefi said that Egypt would have to change some street names as well. "Names of streets are symbols which have meaning. It is necessary for both sides to consider such things," he said, without mentioning which Egyptian streets he was referring to.

Shrine no more?

THE SHRINE of a Jewish saint in the Delta province of Beheira had its antique status removed by a Cairo administrative court on Monday, thus effectively banning an annual festival that had traditionally been attended by Jews from all over the world, and particularly Israel. Egypt had officially sanctioned the so-called moulid, or festival, of Abu Hasira since a peace treaty was signed with Israel in 1979.

The court's decision was in response to a Ministry of Culture appeal of an Alexandria court's decision to declare the shrine an antiquity. The court said that declaring it an antiquity was offensive.

The court also said that holding the festival in Egypt when Palestinians are being killed and banned from their homes by Israel hurts the sentiments of both Muslims and Christians in Egypt.

The Moulid of Abu Hasira, celebrating the birth of a Moroccan Jew who lived and died in the village, had traditionally lasted for eight days each year.