Silhouettes of a Trip

The Organization of Islamic Cooperation Summit is to be held on February 6th in Cairo with the presence of the heads of Islamic countries in Cairo. This is the first trip of a president of the Islamic Republic of Iran to Egypt following the Islamic Revolution. In March 2008, the head of the reformist government traveled to Egypt and was welcomed by Egypt's President at the time. At that time, he had no official position and was solely invited by the Egyptians to participate in a ceremony to commemorate the birthday of the Prophet of Islam. Nevertheless, Mubarak postponed his trip to Saudi Arabia for a few hours to have breakfast with the head of Iran’s reformist government and confer with him. The interesting point in the mentioned trip was the speech made by Mr. Mubarak in the Mecca Summit which was completely similar to speeches made by Mr. Khatami. On this trip, the head of the reformist government was widely welcomed by the people. Newspapers at the time wrote that more than seven million Egyptians sat by their TVs until late at night to watch his live interview with the Dream satellite channel.

The trip made by Mr. Ahmadinejad to Egypt is done at a time when a few sideline issues have overshadowed it; first is the issue of Syria which will certainly be proposed in the Summit of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation by many of the Islamic countries. As the host of this summit, Egypt has a negative position with regard to Mr. Bashar Assad and supports his opponents; hence, in this summit, Iran does not have many friends with regard to the issue of Syria to give weight to support for Syria and Bashar Assad. The second issue is the bilateral relations between Iran and Egypt which have been cut off for five decades. Following the revolution in Egypt, many expected relations between the two countries to be reformed but this did not happen. Third is the issue of the opposition groups of the Islamic Republic which are supported by some factions in Egypt, and during the trip made by Mr. Salehi to Cairo, they met with Egypt's vice president! The fourth issue is the issue of Palestine and Palestinian groups who have made new friends during recent months and some of which have chosen new policies. It has been stated in the news that the Sheikh of al-Azhar mosque will meet with Mr. Ahmadinejad. The nature of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation calls for the al-Azhar mosque to play a colorful role in it, thus, this meeting has no special meaning. It is hoped that the sideline issues do not become so colorful so as to overshadow the results in this trip.