Coming soon
A flurry of activity has inspired talk of Egypt and Iran fully restoring their diplomatic ties. Rasha Saad finds out how soon it might happen
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This Tehran mural is an example of the way Egyptian militant Khaled El-Islambouli has been glorified by hard-liners in Iran
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Despite the fact that officials from both sides remained tight lipped about specifying a date, speculation was rife last week that an agreement between Egypt and Iran to restore full diplomatic relations was at hand.
Iranian Vice-President Mohamed Ali Abtahi broke the news on 6 January when he told Al- Jazeera satellite channel that a resumption of ties was only days away. "The decision to restore relations has been taken," Abtahi said. "And in the coming days, inshallah (God willing), we will witness the resumption of our relations."
Cairo played down Abtahi's statements, preferring to remain more discreet about the matter. A few hours after Abtahi spoke, Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher agreed that, "things are moving in the right direction," he maintained, however, "we have no specific announcement to make now, but we might have [one] very soon."
A day later, Abtahi seemed to qualify his remarks. "The important steps have been completed," he told reporters in Tehran. "The decisions have been taken and they [the two sides] are in the process of seeing how to sort out the questions of protocol." He added that once the final issues of protocol had been settled, an "official declaration" would be made.
Iranian government spokesman Abdollah Ramezanzadeh was also cautious, refusing to say when full ties might resume. "What is most important is that the two countries wish to develop relations... the process had been accelerated and we hope the discussions will achieve more positive results."
Abtahi's original revelation followed the Tehran city council's agreeing to an Iranian Foreign Ministry request to change the name of a street named after Khaled El-Islambouli, one of the assassins of late Egyptian President Anwar El- Sadat. The street was renamed Intifada, after the Palestinian uprising against Israel.
Naming the street after Sadat's assassin had been a major sticking point between the two nations, as well as a key to any attempt to end the 25-year freeze in full diplomatic relations between the Middle East's two most populous nations. Egypt has long demanded that Iran change the street's name as part of the process of improving relations.
Diplomatic ties were severed after Cairo signed a peace treaty with Israel, and provided asylum for deposed Iranian Shah Mohamed Reza Pahlavi. Relations worsened when Egypt supported Iraq during its 1980-1988 war against Iran. Since the 1990s, however, trade and other ties have been improving, as Iran sought to improve ties with a number of Arab nations.
The two nations now run interest sections in their respective capitals. Several meetings between the foreign ministers of both countries have also taken place in the last few years. In a major turning point in Cairo-Tehran relations, President Hosni Mubarak met with his Iranian counterpart Mohamed Khatami on the sidelines of a UN technology summit in Geneva in December. During the meeting -- the first between the two countries' heads of state since the 1979 Iranian Islamic Revolution -- Khatami invited Mubarak to attend the February D-8 economic summit of developing nations being held in Tehran. Egyptian sources close to Mubarak have said the president would not visit Tehran unless the Islamic republic also scrapped public tributes to Islambouli.
Writer Fahmy Howeidy, an expert in Iranian affairs, believes that a resumption of relations will most likely take place later this month or early next month, before Mubarak's visit to Tehran. "If President Mubarak decides to go to Tehran, as agreed upon with Iranian officials, then it is common sense that resumption of ties should take place before his visit. In this context, I believe, the Iranians were encouraged to change the name of the street, and thus undertake part of their commitment to Egypt."
Not everyone on both sides is happy with such a rapprochement, Howeidy said. "Shifting the opinions of some forces in both countries is not a very easy process."
Indeed, in Iran, while the decision to rename the street was welcomed by reformists, it raised eyebrows in more hard-line circles. Iranian hardliners are reportedly furious at what they see as a concession aimed at making friends with a US ally in the Middle East that maintains ties with Israel. Hard-line groups rallied following Friday prayers in Tehran, chanting slogans critical of both the Foreign Ministry and the city council.
The ultra hard-line Ansar Hizbullah group, which organised the protest, said in a statement that the "foreign policy players and deceiving city council members are mistaken to think they can strip Islambouli, one of the heroes of Islam's international movement, of the medal Ayatollah Khomeini gave him." The same group plans to unveil a monument in Tehran's main cemetery in commemoration of Islambouli.
Two years ago, the previous city council, led by reformers, tried to change the name, but the move was put on hold in the wake of serious political wrangling between rival factions, and angry protests from hard-line vigilante groups.
In Egypt, it is widely believed that the main obstacle delaying the full restoration of ties with Iran has always been the security file. Egypt has accused Iran of harbouring members of violent Islamist organisations who have been convicted in Egyptian courts over the years. Informed sources thus believe that Egyptian security bodies have been demanding that Iran show good will by handing over Egyptian militants before any serious step in the direction of normalising ties be taken.
US officials, meanwhile, welcomed the move, with the State Department describing it as "positive". US Assistant Secretary of State William Burns also discussed Iran during his meetings in Egypt this week.
According to Howeidy, even though the US has maintained a dialogue with Iran on several issues over the past few years and is in no need of a mediator, "it still regards Egypt as a helpful factor towards easing tensions between Washington and Tehran."
Via the Egypt-Iran rapprochement, the US is also seeking access to Al-Qa'eda militants who escaped Afghanistan after Washington's invasion in the wake of the 11 September attacks. The US accuses Iran of harbouring these elements -- Washington has said militants based in Iran plotted suicide bombings in Saudi Arabia last May, and has demanded Iran help bring them to justice. Iran denies that Al-Qa'eda is operating from its territory, while admitting that it is, however, holding unnamed militants in its custody. According to reports, it has held talks with other countries, including Egypt, with a view towards extraditing some of these suspects. Shi'ite Muslim Iran says it is ideologically opposed to Sunni-dominated Al-Qa'eda, and has arrested and deported hundreds of its militants since the war in Afghanistan.
The most important figure Western intelligence agencies say may be in Iran is an Egyptian named Saif Al-Adl, who is Al-Qa'eda's security chief. Resuming Egyptian ties with Iran, observers said, may help facilitate his handover.
