President Mohamed Morsy does plan on taking part in the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) conference slated for 30 August in Tehran, a presidential source told Al-Masry Al-Youm. Morsy made the decision "out of anxiousness to represent Egypt in international events,” the source said. Hamid Baghaei, Iran's vice president, had earlier extended an official invitation from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for the summit, but Morsy did not immediately accept. Morsy encountered his Iranian counterpart on Monday for the first time since assuming his new role during an extraordinary Islamic summit held in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. The NAM, a 118-state organization, was established in 1955 to emphasize non-alignment with the world's superpowers. Iran is poised to take over from Egypt as the head of the NAM for the next three years. Iran severed diplomatic relations with Egypt when former President Anwar Sadat signed the Camp David Accords with Israel in 1979, and then welcomed the ousted shah after the 1979 Iranian Revolution. Relations between the nations have been tense for the past 30 years. Under the rule of former President Hosni Mubarak, Egypt had accused Iran of destabilizing the Middle East by meddling in countries' internal affairs. Iran named a street in Tehran after Khaled al-Islambouli, who assassinated Sadat in 1981, and accused Egypt of taking part in the Israeli war on Gaza in December 2008. Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
