CAIRO: Despite a recent short stopover in Tehran, Egypt's President Mohamed Morsi has said that his government has not entered into negotiations with Iran over renewing diplomatic ties that have been broken for over three decades. Morsi attendance at the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) summit last Thursday was the first by an Egyptian leader in the country since the 1970s before Iran's Islamic Revolution. On Sunday, Morsi's spokesman Yasser Ali said that statements from Iranian officials pointing to renewed diplomatic relations were premature and were not discussed during Morsi's brief visit to the country. “The meeting between President Mohamed Morsi and his Iranian counterpart (Mahmoud) Ahmadinejad did not broach the subject of boosting the level of representation or of opening an embassy,” said Ali in statements published by the state-owned daily Al-Ahram. It was the second time Ali had denied any discussion on rebooting diplomatic ties between Iran and Egypt in recent weeks. “The matter [of restoring diplomatic ties] is out of the question at this stage," Yasser Ali told the Saudi-owned newspaper Al-Sharq Al-Awsat in an interview also published in Egyptian media ahead of the president's visit to Tehran. Last month, Iran's Vice-President Ali Akbar Salehi said that the two countries are to restore diplomatic relations after more than 30 years. Salehi made the statements in an interview with Egypt's state-run Al-Ahram newspaper, saying that Tehran was looking forward to establishing relations of “friendship and brotherhood" with Cairo. “Egypt is the cornerstone of the region and has a special stature in the Arab and Muslim countries ... and we want relations of friendship and brotherhood with it," Salehi said, adding that Tehran hoped to restore “normal" relations with Cairo. “We will pursue this path and restoration of relations depends only on protocol measures." Salehi said Egypt's “revolution opened a new chapter in Egypt's relations with the outside world," adding that the Islamic republic would welcome Morsi in Tehran. The two countries have been at odds since Egypt hosted the ousted Shah following Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution and Egypt's peace treaty with Israel.
