Iran's foreign minister Ali Akbafr Salehi said on Wednesday that his country will resume collaboration with Egypt, and will continue to do so once the two nations have established embassies in each other's countries. Salehi, in a statement to reporters in Muscat, Oman, where he met with Sultan Qaboos Bin Said, said that he would meet soon with his Egyptian counterpart to discuss improving ties and other issues of common interest. "I agreed with Egypt's Minister of Foreign Affairs Nabil al-Araby to hold that meeting in Bali, Indonesia, on the margin of a meeting by the Non-Aligned Movement," he said in statements published by Iranian state-run news agency IRNA. Araby recently announced that Cairo was about to turn a new page in its relations with Tehran. Relations between the states have been almost severed since Iran's Islamic Revolution in 1979. The discord persisted under the rule of Sadat's successor, Hosni Mubarak, due to ongoing disagreement over political orientations. Egypt and Iran are among the most prominent member states within the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), which was established in 1955 to emphasize non-alignment with the world's superpowers at the time, the US and the Soviet Union. Asked whether Iran had requested Qatar and Oman to intervene and secure the removal of GCC forces from Bahrain, Salehi said his country had made efforts in that respect, relying on the good relations it enjoys with those countries, according to IRNA. Several Gulf states, led by Saudi Arabia, sent the GCC's Peninsula Shield forces to Bahrain to help its Sunni government counter protests by the country's Shia majority, which erupted in February. The military intervention led to tensions in Gulf relations with Iran, which voiced its support to Bahrain's Shia population. Iran's government typically backs Shia communities in the Arab region. Salehi also stated he would head soon to Iraq and the UAE to discuss the latest regional developments and reinforce common ties. His visit to Oman, arriving from Qatar, is part of an Iranian bid to improve relations with the Gulf states, which have deteriorated since the start of the unrest in Bahrain. Translated from the Arabic Edition
