Only three days after announcing a deal to re-establish diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia, Iran has said it wants to improve ties with Egypt in Tehran's latest outreach to the Arab world.
"Egypt is an important country in the region and what the region needs is synergy between Iran and Egypt, and we believe in taking new steps to improve our relations,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani said on Monday in his weekly press briefing.
There was no immediate comment from the Egyptian Foreign Ministry on Mr Kanaani's statement. However, both the ministry and the presidency welcomed Friday's announcement on the resumption of relations between Riyadh and Tehran, saying they hoped it would result in defusing regional tensions.
Tehran's relations with Cairo, a close ally of Saudi Arabia and other Gulf nations, have been fraught since the ousting of Iran's shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in the 1979 Islamic revolution. The shah's subsequent refuge in Egypt, then under the rule of president Anwar Sadat, worsened relations.
The shah died in 1980 in Egypt, where he is buried.
Relations deteriorated when Iran's clerical government named a Tehran street after Khaled Al Islambouli, who led a team of assassins that killed Mr Sadat during a 1981 military parade in Cairo. Repeated requests by Cairo to remove his name were denied.
More recently relations have been tense over what Cairo sees as the meddling of non-Arab and Shiite Iran in the internal affairs of Arab nations, such as Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen.
Unlike Saudi Arabia, which closed its embassy in Tehran in 2016, Egypt has maintained diplomatic representation in Tehran since the Islamic revolution. However, it has left only a charge d'affaires running its mission in the Iranian capital while Iran has a functioning embassy in Cairo led by an ambassadorial-level diplomat.
Egyptian officials familiar with Cairo's relations with Iran say the two countries have maintained sporadic contact over the years.
Like Saudi Arabia, Egypt is a regional heavyweight. While the kingdom is home to Islam's holiest shrines, Cairo's 1,000-year-old Al Azhar Mosque is considered the world's primary seat of Sunni Islam learning. Egypt is also the most populous Arab state with more than 100 million people.
Despite Friday's move, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal Bin Farhan sought to temper expectations of the diplomatic deal. In an interview published on Monday in the Saudi-owned Asharq Al Awsat daily, he said the agreement "does not mean that all pending issues between the two nations have been solved".
The major Hashd factions linked to Iran:
Badr Organisation: Seen as the most militarily capable faction in the Hashd. Iraqi Shiite exiles opposed to Saddam Hussein set up the group in Tehran in the early 1980s as the Badr Corps under the supervision of the Iran Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). The militia exalts Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei but intermittently cooperated with the US military.
Saraya Al Salam (Peace Brigade): Comprised of former members of the officially defunct Mahdi Army, a militia that was commanded by Iraqi cleric Moqtada Al Sadr and fought US and Iraqi government and other forces between 2004 and 2008. As part of a political overhaul aimed as casting Mr Al Sadr as a more nationalist and less sectarian figure, the cleric formed Saraya Al Salam in 2014. The group’s relations with Iran has been volatile.
Kataeb Hezbollah: The group, which is fighting on behalf of the Bashar Al Assad government in Syria, traces its origins to attacks on US forces in Iraq in 2004 and adopts a tough stance against Washington, calling the United States “the enemy of humanity”.
Asaeb Ahl Al Haq: An offshoot of the Mahdi Army active in Syria. Asaeb Ahl Al Haq’s leader Qais al Khazali was a student of Mr Al Moqtada’s late father Mohammed Sadeq Al Sadr, a prominent Shiite cleric who was killed during Saddam Hussein’s rule.
Harakat Hezbollah Al Nujaba: Formed in 2013 to fight alongside Mr Al Assad’s loyalists in Syria before joining the Hashd. The group is seen as among the most ideological and sectarian-driven Hashd militias in Syria and is the major recruiter of foreign fighters to Syria.
Saraya Al Khorasani: The ICRG formed Saraya Al Khorasani in the mid-1990s and the group is seen as the most ideologically attached to Iran among Tehran’s satellites in Iraq.
(Source: The Wilson Centre, the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation)
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
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The five pillars of Islam
Mohammed bin Zayed Majlis
Quarter-finals
Saturday (all times UAE)
England v Australia, 11.15am
New Zealand v Ireland, 2.15pm
Sunday
Wales v France, 11.15am
Japan v South Africa, 2.15pm
The five pillars of Islam
1. Fasting
2. Prayer
3. Hajj
4. Shahada
5. Zakat
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
