Iran wants to repair relations with Egypt after Saudi deal

Only three days after announcing a deal to re-establish diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia, Iran has said it wants to improve ties with Egypt in Tehran's latest outreach to the Arab world.

"Egypt is an important country in the region and what the region needs is synergy between Iran and Egypt, and we believe in taking new steps to improve our relations,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani said on Monday in his weekly press briefing.

There was no immediate comment from the Egyptian Foreign Ministry on Mr Kanaani's statement. However, both the ministry and the presidency welcomed Friday's announcement on the resumption of relations between Riyadh and Tehran, saying they hoped it would result in defusing regional tensions.

Tehran's relations with Cairo, a close ally of Saudi Arabia and other Gulf nations, have been fraught since the ousting of Iran's shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in the 1979 Islamic revolution. The shah's subsequent refuge in Egypt, then under the rule of president Anwar Sadat, worsened relations.

The shah died in 1980 in Egypt, where he is buried.

Relations deteriorated when Iran's clerical government named a Tehran street after Khaled Al Islambouli, who led a team of assassins that killed Mr Sadat during a 1981 military parade in Cairo. Repeated requests by Cairo to remove his name were denied.