Iranian senior official arrives in Cairo for talks on Syria
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E-mail Xinhua, March 31, 2013
Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian arrived in Cairo Saturday for talks on the Syrian issue, official news agency MENA reported.
The Iranian official is expected to hold talks in Cairo with the United Nations-Arab League envoy to Syria Lakhdar Brahimi on the Syrian crisis.
He is also scheduled to meet with a number of Egyptian officials to exchange views on a number of regional issues, especially the situation in Syria.
Abdollahian's visit coincides with the first flight launched from Cairo to Tehran in 34 years as ties have started to resume between the two countries since 2011 upheaval that toppled former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.
Ties between Egypt and Iran were cut off after Egypt signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1979.
Both ruled by Islamist-oriented administrations, Egypt and Iran started to slightly normalize relations despite a number of challenges, including different positions on the Syrian issue, different ideological perception of religion between Egypt's Sunnis and Iran's Shiites, and Iran's tension with a number of Gulf states with which Egypt shares major interests.
Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi visited Tehran last August to attend the Nonaligned Movements (NAM) summit, becoming the first Egyptian president to visit Iran in decades.
In February, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad became the first Iranian president to visit Egypt in over 34 years by attending the summit of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation in Cairo.
What's more, Egyptian Tourism Minister Hesham Zazou and head of Iran's Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism Organization Mohammad Sharif Malekzadeh signed a memorandum of understanding in Tehran late February to promote tourism cooperation and nonstop flights between the two countries.
