GENEVA, 11 December 2003 — The presidents of Egypt and Iran, their countries long divided over how to deal with Israel, held landmark talks yesterday, agreeing to work together to help solve regional and international problems.
The meeting was the first at top level since Iran’s Islamic revolution 24 years ago, after which it broke ties with Egypt and denounced it for its signing a peace deal and setting up full diplomatic links with Israel. One Iranian official described the talks at a Geneva hotel as the first big step toward establishing full relations.
Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak told reporters after the hour-long meeting that the two Muslim powers “share the same positions on the Middle East” and had a “good relationship”. A statement issued from the delegation of Iranian President Mohammad Khatami said the two had discussed bilateral questions, US-occupied Iraq, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
They decided “on joint efforts by Iran and Egypt on different regional and international issues”, it added, but gave no further details.
Relations have been slowly on the mend in recent years and the two countries now have representative offices — although still not embassies — in each other’s capitals.
“This is the first big step toward forming full relations between Iran and Egypt and I hope it won’t be the last step,” Iranian Vice President Mohammad Ali Abtahi said in Tehran earlier. He said meetings had been planned in the past but had not materialized.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher told state television in Cairo before the talks that “new horizons for relations” would be discussed. “We are keen to have Iran as a part of positive efforts to establish peace, security and trust in the region,” he added.
Both presidents are in Geneva to attend a United Nations World Summit on the Information Society, which opened yesterday. Earlier in the day, Mubarak also met Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom.
One issue bedeviling Iranian efforts to improve ties is the naming of a Tehran street after Khaled Islambouli, a radical who assassinated Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in 1981. Cairo has said if the street were renamed it would remove a major obstacle to better relations. There was no immediate indication if the issue came up at the Geneva talks.
