Egypt Says Iran Must Be Included in Syria Contact Group

Mohamed Morsi, candidate for the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), has been declared the winner of the national run-off presidential elections in the North African state of Egypt. Morsi is a U.S.-educated engineer., a photo by Pan-African News Wire File Photos on Flickr.

Egypt: Iran must be included in Syria contact group

Sun Aug 26, 2012 10:46PM GMT
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Egypt has reiterated that Iran should be included in a regional contact group on the situation in Syria.

During the summit of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, which was held on August 14-15 in Mecca, Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi proposed the formation of the group.

"Solving the problem demands inviting all parties, active in the region," AFP quoted Morsi's spokesman Yassir Ali as saying on Sunday, noting that Tehran was an "influential partner" of Damascus.

"If this group succeeds, Iran would be part of the solution and not the problem," Ali said.

Syria has been the scene of deadly unrest since mid-March, 2011, and many people, including Army and security personnel, have been killed in the violence.

Iran has consistently stressed that dialog is the only solution to the crisis in Syria and similarly proposed the formation of a contact group to end the violence in the Arab country.

Hoping to restore "normal" ties with Cairo, Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi told Egypt's Al-Ahram newspaper on Tuesday that “Egypt is the cornerstone of the region and has a special stature among the Arab and Muslim countries...and we want relations of friendship and brotherhood with it."

"We will pursue this path and restoration of relations depends only on protocol measures,” Salehi had pointed out.

Morsi is expected to attend the 16th Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) Summit, currently underway in Tehran.

His trip to Tehran will mark the first such visit since Iran and Egypt severed ties more than 30 years ago after Cairo signed the 1978 Camp David Accords with Israel.