EGYPT: An Iranian official said yesterday Tehran and Cairo have agreed to restore diplomatic ties broken 25 years ago, but Egypt said a final decision had yet to be taken.
"The two countries have decided to restore ties . . . and right now they are making the preparations," Iranian Vice-President Mr Mohammad Ali Abtahi added. "By working together, Iran and Egypt can become an influential power in world issues."
In Cairo, Egyptian Foreign Minister Mr Ahmed Maher insisted it was too soon to speak of a decision on normalising ties between the two Muslim countries.
He said: "We always thought it would be a good thing to be able to create conditions to establish contact between two very important countries in the region but this is as far as I would go today. There is no official announcement from anywhere."
An agreement between Tehran and Cairo - a major US ally and a key broker in Palestinian-Israeli talks - would heal the last rift between Egypt and fellow Islamic states caused by its 1978 Camp David peace deal with Israel.
Non-Arab Iran, which has witnessed a slight thaw in its diplomatic stand-off with arch-foe Washington in recent days, has made great efforts to improve its relations with Arab neighbours in recent years.
"This is a step in accordance with \ detente policy and trust-building with all countries, especially Islamic countries," the official IRNA news agency quoted a foreign ministry spokesman as saying.
The agreement could also pave the way for Iran to hand over some captured al-Qaeda members a key demand of Washington. Among those Tehran is believed to be holding is Egyptian Saif al-Adel, al-Qaeda's suspected operations chief.
The ground for restoring ties was paved by Tehran City Council which yesterday renamed a street that had honoured the assassin of Egypt's late president Anwar Sadat.
IRNA said the council had changed Khaled Islambouli street to Intifada street, after the Palestinian uprising, at the request of Iran's foreign ministry. Cairo had demanded Iran rename the street before it would contemplate restoring ties.
"Of course this is a positive step," Mr Maher said. Iran broke ties with Egypt shortly after the 1979 Islamic revolution for striking the Camp David peace deal and hosting Iran's exiled shah, who died in Cairo in 1980.
Islambouli, an Islamic extremist who opposed the Israeli-Egyptian peace accord, shot Sadat in 1981. He was later executed.
A huge mural of Islambouli overlooks the street that bore his name in Tehran. A caption reads: "In honour of Lieut Islambouli, the Revolutionary Execution Agent of Sadat".
Iranian President Mohammad Khatami and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak met on the sidelines of a conference in Geneva last month - the first such meeting for two decades.
The renaming of the street under instructions from Mr Khatami's reformist government faced some opposition from hardliners in Iran. - (Reuters)