EGYPT and Iran have their own interests to keep and protect. As regional powers, the two share joint interests including economic, trade, touristic and cultural ties that can undoubtedly make get them closer to one another either now or in the future. These mutual ties are for the interests of the Egyptians and the Iranians, who can work on exchanging expertise in peaceful fields such as industry, technology, sciences and industry. Such an exchange and co-operation will be beneficial to about 85 million Egyptians and 76 million Iranians respectively. During a recent visit to Tehran by some 23 Egyptian journalists, including myself, we have realised a true desire by Iranian officials to forge comprehensive and unfettered ties with Egypt at all fields. But, we also realised that there are fears and hesitations pertaining to this matter because Cairo sees that any sort of normalisation of ties with Tehran could have uncomfortable repercussions on the existing relations between Egypt and the Gulf countries on one hand as well as the Egyptian ties with the US and the Western countries on the other. Moreover, there are local fears by some people that warmer ties with Iran can spreading its Shi'ite faith in a predominantly Sunni Muslim country like Egypt, or promote the principles of the Islamic Revolution among the Egyptians. Such fear has clearly manifested itself when angry salafis (Muslim fundamentalists) objected to a visit by the first batch of Iranian tourists to Egypt. One may say that such fears are magnified because there are other countries that have ties with Iran and yet they have not been affected by Tehran's ideologies or attitudes. For example, Turkey has a trade volume of approximately 20b with Iran per annum. In the meantime, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) receives more than 45,000 Iranian tourists each year, whereas there are Egyptians who object to visits by Iranians to their country just because they are afraid that they will spread Shi'ite faith here. Those Egyptians should have expressed their fears towards visits by Israeli tourists who come to Sinai in the first place, or visits by other tourists, who are not either Muslims, Christians, or Jews. There are guarantees that Iranian tourists would pose no threat and could help shore up the nation's struggling tourism industry. Egypt can't ignore countries like Iran whose people constitute a good share from international traffic of tourism in the world. In addition, it is hoped that the two countries would upgrade their diplomatic relations to the ambassadorial level. It will be a major development which will be in the interest of the two peoples. By the Way She is jealous of him. He is jealous of her. jealousy haunts both of them. [email protected]
