Iran Voices Willingness For Ties With Morocco, Egypt

Iran's foreign minister has reiterated Tehran’s willingness to restore diplomatic relations with Morocco as well as Egypt.

Hossein Amir-Abdollahian made the remarks during a ceremony with ambassadors, charges d'affaires, and heads of diplomatic missions from Muslim countries in Tehran on Thursday, on the occasion of Islamic holiday of Eid al-Adha (Feast of Sacrifice).

"We welcome expansion of relations and normalization of ties with other countries in the region and the Muslim world, including the Arab Republic of Egypt and the Muslim and brotherly country of Morocco," he said.

Tehran-Rabat relations are mostly non-existent, and diplomatic relations between the two nations have often been tarred by disputes.

Concerned of Iran’s attempts to spread its Shiite version of Islam in the country, which it deemed as a danger to its moderate Sunni religious identity, Morocco severed ties with Iran in 2009. They announced they were re-establishing relations in 2014. But in 2018, Morocco cut its diplomatic ties with Iran again, with the Moroccan Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita citing Iranian financial and logistical support to the secessionist Polisario Front through its Lebanese proxy Hezbollah and the Iranian embassy in Algeria.

Iran’s relations with Egypt, a close ally of Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf nations, have been fraught since the Shah fell in 1979. His subsequent refuge in Egypt, where he died and was buried in 1980, damaged relations.Qatar-affiliated media outlet Al-Arabi Al-Jadeed reported last June that Cairo and Tehran had agreed on “gradual expansion of Tehran-Cairo relations."

In May, Iranian lawmaker Fada-Hossein Maleki, a member of the parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy committee, said that talks to bolster ties between Iran and Egypt are being held regularly in Iraq.