rt.com 14 May, 2023 16:33
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Iran and Egypt to restore diplomatic ties
A senior lawmaker in Tehran has revealed that talks are underway in Iraq
© Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto via Getty Images
Iran and Egypt are on track to restore diplomatic relations and reopen their respective embassies, a member of the Iranian Parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission has said.
MP Fada-Hossein Maleki added that President Ebrahim Raisi and his Egyptian counterpart, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, will meet in person in the near future.
Speaking to Iran’s Tasnim news agency on Sunday, Maleki said that talks between Tehran and Cairo are currently being held in Iraq. The lawmaker described the atmosphere during the negotiations as positive.
In January, the Iranian Foreign Ministry revealed that its head, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, sat down with the Egyptian head of state in late 2022. The ministry spokesperson said at the time that the two countries
“have basically no problem for dialogue, meetings, and exchange of views.”
Relations between Cairo and Tehran were severed in 1980 following the Islamic Revolution in Iran.
Meanwhile, in mid-March, longstanding rivals Iran and Saudi Arabia announced they were planning to restore diplomatic relations, which they broke off in 2016.
READ MORE: Syria and Saudi Arabia reopen embassies
The talks and subsequent accord between the two regional powers was brokered by China, with the US conspicuously absent from the affair.
The fact that Beijing managed to get the two rivals to talk and reach an agreement was heralded as a major victory for Chinese diplomacy.
Riyadh also engaged in negotiations with the Shiite Houthi rebels in Yemen last month, giving rise to hopes that the bloody conflict, which has been raging since 2015, may soon come to an end.
The war in Yemen is widely seen as a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran.
Late last month, Chinese newspaper the People’s Daily reported that President Xi Jinping personally played a pivotal role in persuading Riyadh and Tehran to normalize relations.
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