Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian will make a rare visit to Egypt on Thursday to take part in a summit of large Muslim countries, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei has announced. It will be the first visit by an Iranian president to Egypt in more than a decade.
Reuters has reported that Egypt is hosting the summit of the D-8 Organisation for Economic Cooperation, which also includes Bangladesh, Indonesia, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan and Turkiye.
Relations between Egypt and Iran have generally been fraught in recent decades, but the two countries have stepped up high-level diplomatic contacts since the eruption of the Gaza crisis last year, as Egypt tried to play a mediating role.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Aragchi travelled to Egypt in October to discuss regional issues with Egyptian officials, while his Egyptian counterpart Badr Abdelatty travelled to Tehran in July to attend Pezeshkian’s inauguration.
“We have the important summit… known as D-8 in Egypt, the foreign minister will take part in the ministerial conference and then the summit will be held with the participation of the president,” said Baghaei in a weekly televised news conference.
Iran will discuss regional and bilateral affairs with the participating countries on the sidelines of the summit, he added.
The D-8 was established in 1997 to improve cooperation between countries stretching from South East Asia to Africa.
Turkiye: We convinced Russia, Iran to avoid military intervention for Assad