Egypt

Senior Egyptian religious leader: US, Israeli Seeking to Spread Shiitophobia in Egypt

A senior Egyptian Muslim religious leader cautioned that the US and Israel were seeking to spread Shiitophobia in Egypt during the Hosni Mubarak regime in a bid to contain Iran’s power and prevent resumption of ties with the Shiite Iran.

“The spread of Shiism in Egypt and sparking a phobia in this regard was a plot hatched by the former regime to intimidate the Egyptian nation,” Sheikh Ahman Abdelal, a renowned Soufi Muslim leader, told FNA on Monday.

He added that Cairo’s efforts to spread the Shiitophobia were made at the order of the Zionist regime of Israel and were exercised on the basis the US plots.

As regards the ties between Iran and Egypt, he stated, “The resumption of ties between Iran and Egypt is completely necessary since severance of their ties was not justified at the onset.”

After the collapse of Hosni Mubarak’s regime early in 2011, the Iranian and Egyptian officials voiced their interest in the resumption of diplomatic relations between the two countries.

The United States, Israel and their regional proxies are deeply concerned about the imminent resumption of ties between the two Muslim kingpins, and the recent developments have deepened these worries.

Late in August, Iranian Presidents Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his Egyptian counterpart Mohammed Mursi attended bilateral talks on the sidelines of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) summit in Tehran.

Ahmadinejad and Mursi discussed the Syrian conflict and their nations’ diplomatic ties in their first-ever bilateral meeting, an official said.

The meeting took place in Tehran on the sidelines of a summit of the Non-Aligned Movement, during which Egypt handed over the organization’s rotating presidency to Iran.

Mursi’s attendance was the first time a head of state from Egypt set foot in Iran since the two countries broke off diplomatic ties in the wake of Tehran’s 1979 Islamic revolution.

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