CAIRO: Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad held 20-minute talk in Cairo on Tuesday with his Egyptian counterpart Mohamed Morsi on the divisive issue of Syria’s war, security officials said. Ahmadinejad is in Cairo to attend a summit of the Organisation of Islamic Co-operation (OIC), which begins on Wednesday.
Ahmadinejad arrived in Cairo earlier in the day for the first visit by an Iranian leader since 1979, marking a historic departure from years of frigid ties between the two regional heavyweights.
Soon after President Mohammed Morsi gave Ahmadinejad a red-carpet welcome on the tarmac at Cairo airport, the two leaders held discussions on regional developments and discussed “how to end the bloodshed in Syria … without military intervention,” MENA news agency said.
Iranian President’s three-day visit to Cairo is the latest sign of improved relations between Sunni power Egypt and the Shiite power since the 2011 uprising that ousted longtime Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and brought an Islamist-run government to power in Cairo.
Regarding the conflict that ravaged Syria for almost two years, leaving more than 60,000 people dead according to the United Nations (UN), Iran and Egypt stand on opposite sides.
Tehran is committed to the survival of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his regime. It has supplied financial aid and admitted to sending Revolutionary Guards military advisers to Damascus. However, Egypt’s Morsi sided with Syria’s rebels, whom he sees as upholding the revolutionary ideals that brought him and his Muslim Brotherhood to power after the Arab Spring.
DND
