TEHRAN, 6 January 2004 — Iran’s government has formally asked Tehran City Council to remove a major barrier to restoring ties with Egypt by renaming a street dedicated to the assassin of late Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, a top council source told AFP yesterday.
“Tomorrow (Tuesday) we will examine the letter of Hamid Reza Asefi, the spokesman of the Foreign Ministry, about changing the name of Khaled Eslamboli street,” a senior City Council official said.
“After examining it, this issue will then go to a special committee for changing names. If the special committee accepts, then the question goes to all of the city council for a final vote,” added the source, asking he not be named. Another official on the council, held by conservatives since last February, said a final decision on the issue could even be reached during today’s meeting.
Back in October 2002, when the Tehran council was in the hands of Iran’s reformist camp, a council official said a decision to rename the street had been made in principle, but the Foreign Ministry had the final say. After Sadat was assassinated at a military parade in 1981, Iran’s revolutionary leadership named a street after his killer, Khaled Eslamboli.
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has demanded the street be renamed as one of the conditions for the two sides to restore full diplomatic relations, but previous hints that the government wanted it renamed have met with angry protests from Iranian hard-line vigilante groups.
Mubarak met Iranian President Mohammad Khatami last month on the sidelines of a UN technology summit in Geneva, and he has been invited to Iran in February to attend a D-8 economic summit of developing nations.
In an interview with the official Iranian news agency IRNA published yesterday, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher termed the talks between Khatami and Mubarak “very important”.
“Iran and Egypt are now preparing the ground to cement their relations, and these efforts must continue,” he said.
Maher also asserted yesterday that his country’s Camp David peace accord with Israel was “is merely a thing of the past” and Cairo and Tehran should boost their ties. “I don’t think using the issue of Camp David will be useful, because it does not exist any more and is merely a thing of the past,” Maher said of the 1979 peace deal - one of the reasons why Iran broke off ties with Egypt.
