examines the significance of recent visits to Cairo by senior Iranian officials, writes Gamal Essam El-Din

January 31, 2008

Recent months have brought signs of a growing rapprochement between Iran and Egypt. There have been exchanges of diplomatic visits and last Thursday saw President Hosni Mubarak for the first time speaking with the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad by telephone.

On Tuesday Iran's Maglis (Parliament) Speaker Gholam Ali Adel paid a three-day visit to Cairo to participate in the two-day meeting of parliamentary speakers of the Organisation of Islamic Countries (OIC). The gathering, the fifth of its kind, included delegations from 37 Muslim countries. Adel is the first senior Iranian parliamentary official to visit Egypt since the 1979 Revolution. Iran broke ties with Egypt following the Camp David Peace Treaty and relations worsened after President Anwar El-Sadat granted refuge to the deposed Shah of Iran.

Adel told Iranian TV that he is optimistic that diplomatic relations between the two countries will soon be restored.

"My optimism stems from positive developments in months," he said, noting that both countries share concerns over the future development of the Islamic world and that the Palestinian problem could strengthen bonds between Cairo and Tehran.

Addressing the meeting of parliamentarians yesterday Adel enumerated the six major problems facing the Islamic world, in Palestine, Iraq, Lebanon and Sudan. Kazem Jalali, of the Maglis's National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, points out that though "Adel's visit comes within the framework of Iran's wider foreign policy and is not directly concerned with mutual ties with Egypt it has included meetings with a number of high-ranking Egyptian officials".

Adel's visit was preceded by the arrival on Sunday in Cairo of the Iranian Foreign Ministry's director-general for Middle East and North African affairs. Ali Asghar Mohamedi met with Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul-Gheit to discuss the crisis resulting from the inflow of Palestinians into Sinai. The following day Iran's Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki announced that Iran and Egypt are on the verge of restoring full diplomatic relations after a three decade-long hiatus.

Even more significant, perhaps, was the visit of Iranian National Security Council Chief Ali Larjani to Cairo last December. Larjani, a close aide to Iran's spiritual leader Ali Khamanei, met President Mubarak and a number of high-ranking Egyptian officials including Abul-Gheit, Chief of General Intelligence Omar Suleiman and the Grand Sheikh of Al-Azhar Mohamed Sayed Tantawi. Larjani said Iran is ready to sell wheat to Egypt and help it in implementing its proposed nuclear power programme.

Despite the recent flurry of visits local analysts believe that Cairo remains reluctant to restore full diplomatic ties with Tehran. Diaa Rashwan, a political analyst with Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies, points out that Iran has been very keen in recent months to promote relations with major Islamic powers such as Saudi Arabia, keenness that bore fruit in President Ahmadinejad being invited to the latest summit of Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) leaders in the Qatari capital of Doha. Ahmadinejad was also invited by Saudi Arabia to Mecca.

"Iranian officials believe this rapprochement with Arab Gulf countries is a step in the right direction but not enough," says Rashwan. "Iranian officials recognise that without Egypt their attempts to consolidate their growing influence in the Arab world vis-à-vis America will not be complete."

Washington, he continued, is fully aware that Iran is keen to improve its relations with Egypt which is why US President George Bush added Egypt to his tour of the region earlier this month. "I am sure that Bush wanted to know how far the two countries have gone in flirting with each other recently," says Rashwan, who argues that Washington understands that losing Egypt to Iran would have a devastating impact on its own influence in the region.

Whatever reservations official Cairo retains, Rashwan argues, could easily be outweighed by the benefits that might ensue should the two countries, both powerful players in the region, restore ties. Iran, he believes, could then use its friendly relations with Egypt to dispel fears in the Sunni world over Tehran's nuclear ambitions and reassure Egyptian thinkers and policymakers, as well as the Arab street, that it is not seeking to export its Islamic revolution to Sunni countries. "The reception at the moment," says Rashwan, "is that Iran uses its two proxies -- Hamas in Gaza and Hizbullah in Lebanon -- to thwart Egyptian and Saudi Arabian efforts to settle conditions in the Arab world."

In return, Egypt could use friendly relations with Iran to restore its influence in some countries. "One of the main reasons Egypt, unlike Saudi Arabia and Syria, lacks influence in Arab countries like Lebanon and Iraq is because it does not have relations with Iran."

Hala Mustafa, editor of the Al-Ahram's quarterly Al-Dimoqratiya, agrees that Egypt's strategic relations with the US are an obstacle to restoring full ties with Iran. Egypt, Mustafa told the Internet website Media Line, cannot afford to ignore its reliance on US aid. "Cairo receives some $1.3 billion in military aid from the US every year and it is no secret that the US uses this as a major tool in influencing Egypt's foreign policy."

Yet US attempts to pressure Egypt, such as the Congress decision last month to withhold $100 million of military assistance to Egypt until Cairo acts to prevent the smuggling of weapons across the borders with Gaza, could well backfire, and lead Cairo to embrace Tehran more closely.

Indeed, Al-Ahram analyst Mohamed El-Sayed Said believes the Congress decision has given impetus to the recent rapprochement between Egypt and Iran. The US, argued Said, must realise that cooling its relations with Egypt will play into the hands of Iran. "I know that President Mubarak would not willingly abandon Egypt's strategic relation with Washington in favour of Tehran but too much pressure on him could force his hand."