CAIRO: Egypt's President-elect Mohamed Morsi on Wednesday said he would take legal action against Iran's Fars news agency over an interview that was fabricated and published by the news agency, Egypt's official MENA news agency said. An aide to Morsi on Tuesday had been reported by Al Jazeera saying that he was not interviewed by Iran's Fars news agency. Speaking to reporters, Yasser Ali said that the comments published by the news agency have “no basis in truth." Egypt's state-run MENA news agency also supported the Morsi aide's claim, denying that the “President of the Republic had any interview with the agency from Iran." The Iran news agency has since published the audio recording of the alleged interview online, but reports suggest that the voice claiming to be Morsi “does not conform" to Morsi's, MENA reported. On Monday, the Iranian news agency reported Morsi saying he wants to boost relations between the country and Iran in the near future. According to the agency's report, Morsi was quoted as saying that he pledged to increase relations with Iran to create a “strategic balance in the region." “Part of my agenda is the development of ties between Iran and Egypt that will create a strategic balance in the region," Morsi, who comes from Egypt's long-repressed Muslim Brotherhood, was quoted as saying. Fars, which is closely linked to Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guards, said the full interview would be published at a later date. It said Morsi spoke with a Fars reporter in Cairo on Sunday before results were released giving him victory in the election to be Egypt's next president. Although Morsi resigned from the Muslim Brotherhood to take the top job, Israel remains wary of his election, fearing his Islamist record could jeopardize its three-decade peace deal with its huge neighbor. But Morsi, on Sunday evening in his first national address post-election results, said he would respect all treaties established by Egypt, ostensibly including the Camp David accords with Israel.
