In Tehran, Dina Ezzat waits for the groundbreaking visit by an Egyptian president to the Islamic Republic It's only a few hours visit that comes strictly in the framework of a multilateral commitment to the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) but still the expected arrival of President Mohamed Mursi in Tehran today is a massive diplomatic gesture and a political message. Mursi is expected in the Iranian capital to hand over the presidency of NAM to his Iranian counterpart Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. "The president will just participate in the opening session and then will leave Tehran. It is only a matter of a few hours," said presidential spokesman Yasser Ali earlier in the week, before the head of state had embarked on a two-legged trip that had taken him to Beijing before his expected arrival in Tehran. Any meetings that Mursi might have while in Tehran for the NAM summit, Ali added in an abrupt tone, would be in line with the observed rules of protocol. In other words, the spokesman of the president was stating that Mursi is not going to Tehran in any bilateral capacity and that he is not planning a bilateral segment of an otherwise multilateral commitment. This message, Egyptian diplomats say, is not meant to underestimate the importance of the Mursi visit. "It is by all accounts a very important visit because this is the president of a state whose relations with Iran have been severed since 1979; so yes it is big," said an Egyptian diplomat. However, according to the same diplomat, the visit is not designed to announce the beginning of the resumption of diplomatic normalisation between Cairo and Tehran but rather to end years marked with tension and at times hostility. Egyptian and Iranian diplomats alike say the Mursi visit, and subsequent possible visits by high-level Iranian officials to Cairo next year within both the bilateral and multilateral framework, would clearly pave the way towards the normalisation of relations between the two countries. Neither side, however, has an estimate to share as to when this normalisation should be expected. "It should not be assumed just because Mursi is an Islamist president that he will rush to normalise relations with the Islamic Republic of Iran. There are so many concerns to take into consideration," said another Egyptian diplomat. The apprehension of the US over Mursi's groundbreaking visit to Tehran is a main concern that Mursi has to keep an eye on, the diplomat added. The US, he added, has not gone as far as to tell Mursi that it is not beneficiary for regional interests for him to visit Tehran even for a few hours. "This is the kind of thing that you could have expected with [ousted president Hosni] Mubarak but not with this new president whom the US is approaching carefully," the diplomat suggested. Egypt is very keen on its relations with the US and President Mursi is not at all wanting to rock the boat, argued Hassan Abu Taleb, a senior political scientist with the Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies. The basic parameters of Egyptian foreign policy under Mursi's presidency would be largely unchallenged especially during the first year, he added. "And observing the mandate of the alliance with the US is still there," Abu Taleb suggested. Mursi is expected to meet US President Barack Obama in New York during the participation of both in the UN General Assembly during the third week of March. According to the assessment of Cairo, this meeting would underline the keenness of both sides to work together even under alternative parameters than those observed during the three-decade rule of Mubarak. And according to a Washington-based Egyptian diplomat, the fact that Mursi is not being received in the White House during his first visit to the US should not be exaggerated because "Obama is going to New York to meet with everyone there anyway -- it is not just about President Mursi." The resumption of relations between Egypt and Iran under Mursi is not as difficult as it was under Mubarak. "Mubarak was very apprehensive about the Iranians; convinced that they want to use relations with Egypt to promote the Shia sect among Muslims in one of the largest Sunni Muslim countries," said a former aide to Mubarak. "He was also worried about what he qualified as the hegemonic tendencies of Iranians especially in view of their advancing nuclear capacity." Mursi does not squarely stand where Mubarak did but he is also someone with clear concerns -- judging by his own statements -- about the Sunni-Shia polarisation. During his first overseas visit to Saudi Arabia only a few days after taking the presidential oath, Mursi stated that Egypt and Saudi Arabia are the guardians of "Sunni Islam" in the region. What lies ahead for Cairo and Tehran in the short run are wider avenues of already existing economic and trade cooperation and the possible exploration of cultural cooperation. Expanded Egyptian-Iranian cooperation in several multilateral contexts is also plausible. Mursi, according to one of his aides, is expected to remind the gathering at the opening of today's NAM summit of his proposal made before an emergency Organisation of Islamic Conference summit two weeks ago in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, to establish a contact group of Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, to attend to the Syrian crisis. This proposal would be renewed amid increasing concern in diplomatic quarters about the beginning of a more intense phase of violence in Syria that could lead to some sort of foreign military intervention to provide protection for violence-terrorised civilians. Egypt and Iran have been cooperating in venues related to humanitarian missions in Afghanistan and to the promotion of Third World perspectives, certainly that of NAM, in relation to the reform of the UN and its Security Council. Egyptian diplomats overseas say that they were asked by respective foreign authorities if Cairo was planning a resumption of relations with Tehran. The answer was that Egypt is planning a new phase of its foreign policy based on more engagement with everyone -- not excluding a leading Muslim and Middle East country like Iran. Indeed, Mursi arrives in Tehran from Beijing where he spent a few days for political and economic talks that opened new vistas of economic cooperation between the two countries and activated relatively sedated diplomatic relations and political dialogue. The Egyptian delegation to China included 75 Egyptian businessmen as well as a handful of ministers specialising in investment, communications, tourism, trade and industry and transportation, set out to boost business with China and to attract more of China's $60 billion in overseas investments. Mursi is also planning two other visits to Malaysia and Brazil. "The president is considering visits to other Asian and Latin American countries whereby he would be soliciting the chances for cooperation," Ali stated. But in Tehran's streets the perception of Mursi's visit is unlike the participation of any other head of a NAM state. Citizens who spoke to Al-Ahram Weekly on the streets of the Iranian capital sounded keen about the news of Mursi's visit and of the hope that it would allow for the resumption of relations between the two countries in what would eventually allow Iranians to visit Egypt and Egyptians to go to Iran.
