Iranian Foreign Minister Arrives in Cairo in First Visit by a Senior Iranian Official in 10 Years

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi arrived in the Egyptian capital, Cairo, late Wednesday evening, in the first visit by a senior Iranian official in ten years.

According to the Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman, important talks will be held on Thursday between Araghchi and high-ranking officials in Egypt.

Cairo represents the most important stop on Araqchi's visit in his intensive diplomatic tour these days, which included most of the Arab countries in the region, starting with Lebanon and Syria, passing through Saudi Arabia and Qatar, Iraq and the Sultanate of Oman, and reaching Jordan, Egypt and then Türkiye.

According to the Iranian IRNA news agency, Araghchi's tour aims to "coordinate measures aimed at stopping the crimes of the Zionist entity and activating the ceasefire in Gaza and Lebanon."

In turn, Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdel Aati said that his Iranian counterpart's visit comes within "Egypt's efforts to reduce escalation in the region."

According to Agence France-Presse, Araghchi's visit to Cairo is the first by an Iranian official at this level since Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi's visit in 2013 as part of an African tour, and it also comes amid a rapprochement in relations between Egypt and Iran in recent months.

The Iranian Foreign Minister's talks in Cairo are scheduled to include arranging a visit, the first of its kind, for Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian to Cairo.

What distinguishes Araghchi's visit to Cairo is that it also has different contexts with regard to relations between the two countries and the efforts that have been made for more than a year to revive diplomatic relations, in addition to the context of the hot regional developments that constituted the most prominent title in the Iranian diplomatic movement.

The agenda of the Iranian Foreign Minister's visit includes discussions on the situation in the Red Sea region and Yemen, developments in the Gaza Strip, and the Israeli aggression on Lebanon, in addition to discussing ways to stop the escalation in light of the possible Israeli military response to Iran, as Araghchi is scheduled to convey a text message from the Iranian President regarding the moves aimed at calming the situation in the region.

On the first of this month, Iran launched about 200 ballistic missiles towards Israel, saying that this was in retaliation for the assassination of the head of the political bureau of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), Ismail Haniyeh, in Tehran in an operation attributed to Israel, and the Secretary-General of the Lebanese Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, with General Abbas Nilforoushan in the Revolutionary Guards in an Israeli raid on the southern suburbs of Beirut on September 27.

Source: Agencies + Al Jazeera + Al-Araby Al-Jadeed