In a statement on Tuesday, a spokesperson for the government of Iran said that President Ebrahim Raisi has directed the foreign ministry to formally recommence diplomatic ties with Egypt.
Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of Iran, had earlier on Monday declared publicly his willingness to resume diplomatic relations with Egypt.
Khamenei had claimed that the Sultan of Oman on Monday in Tehran expressed Egypt’s desire to resume diplomatic ties with Iran.
According to Khamenei’s official website, “We welcome the Omani Sultan’s statement regarding Egypt’s willingness to restore relations with the Islamic Republic of Iran, and we have no objection to this.”
In a news report, made available by the Iran’s news agency, IRNA, Ali Bahadori-Jahromi, a spokesman to the government, said that Iran was “ready to resume and develop relations with Egypt, and the president has directed the foreign ministry to pursue this matter with seriousness.”
Iran and Egypt have lived through a mutual diplomatic spat since the era preceding the Islamic Revolution. However, attempts at reestablishing stronger diplomatic relations between the two countries since 1979 were inspired by Egypt’s Islamist president, Mohamed Mursi, in September 2012, when he became the first Egyptian leader to visit Tehran since the end of the Islamic Revolution.
It could be recalled that after a seven-year absence from formal ties, Saudi Arabia and Iran declared in March that they had struck a Chinese mediated agreement to recommence diplomatic relations. Moreso, during the visit of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to the Sultanate in June, 2022, some senior Iranian and Egyptian officials met secretly in Oman.
Since assuming office on August 3, 2021 as Iran’s new leader, Raisi has since shown a desire to push Iran back into regional and global relations.
