"The trip by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Cairo is highly important since he will be the first Iranian president to pay such a visit since the Islamic Revolution (1979) in Iran," Suez University Professor Dr. Jamal Salamah told FNA on Saturday.
President Ahmadinejad is scheduled to pay a visit to the Egyptian capital on February 6 in a bid to take part in the summit of the Organization of the Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and hold meetings with high-ranking Egyptian officials.
Salamah called for the resumption of normal diplomatic ties between the two countries and the reopening of the Iranian and Egyptian embassies in Cairo and Tehran, and said, "The resumption of ties with Iran is highly important for Egypt's interests and such relations shouldn't be limited merely to a special party and should be established between both the Iranian and Egyptian nations and governments."
After the collapse of Hosni Mubarak's regime, the Iranian and Egyptian officials voiced their interest in the resumption of diplomatic relations between the two countries and Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi officially invited the then Egyptian counterpart Nabil Al-Arabi to pay a visit to Tehran.
Later, the Iranian foreign minister and his former Egyptian counterpart also held a meeting in Bali, Indonesia.
Also, during the Non-Aligned Movement summit in Tehran late August, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his Egyptian counterpart conferred on ways to promote the bilateral relations between Tehran and Cairo, and stressed the need for continued consultations in this regard.
In a latest development, President Mursi in a meeting with Salehi in Cairo in January conferred on bilateral ties as well as the latest regional and international developments.
The issue of Palestine and Syria were among the topics dealt by the two officials.
