Egypt's Islamist president-elect, Mohamed Morsi, wants to “reconsider” the peace deal with Israel and build ties with Iran to “create a strategic balance” in the Middle East, according to an interview published by Iran's Fars news agency, yesterday.
Part of my agenda is the development of ties between Iran and Egypt
But an Egyptian presidential spokesman quashed the Fars report saying that Mr Morsi never spoke to the Iranian news agency.
'Mr Morsi did not give any interview to Fars and everything that this agency has published is without foundation,' a spokesman for the Egyptian presidency told the official news agency Mena.
Fars had said that Mr Morsi spoke to one of its reporters in Cairo on Sunday just before his election triumph was announced.
“We will reconsider the Camp David Accord” that, in 1979, forged a peace between Egypt and Israel that has held for more than three decades, Fars quoted Mr Morsi as saying.
But in a speech to the Egyptian nation after his victory was confirmed, Mr Morsi pledged to respect international treaties signed by Cairo.
According to Fars, Mr Morsi also said the issue of Palestinian refugees returning to homes their families abandoned in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war and the 1967 Six-Day War “is very important”.
Mr Morsi added though that “all these issues will be carried out through Cabinet and governmental bodies because I will not take any decision on my own.”
Mr Morsi also reportedly said he was ready to improve ties with Iran. The Islamic republic broke off diplomatic relations with Egypt in 1980, a year after Cairo signed the peace deal with the Jewish state.
“Part of my agenda is the development of ties between Iran and Egypt that will create a strategic balance in the region,” Mr Morsi was quoted as saying. Later the official Iranian news agency Irna quoted President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as saying he hoped Mr Morsi's election would help bolster ties between Iran and Egypt.
“I congratulate you for your victory as head of Egypt, a friendly and brotherly country,” Mr Ahmadinejad said in a statement addressed to Mr Morsi, and “insisted on the reinforcement of ties between the two countries,” Irna reported.
Mr Morsi's remarks, as reported by Fars, are certain to alarm Israel and its ally the US as they adapt to the new direction Egypt will chart with Mr Morsi at the helm.
They could also boost Iran's influence in the Middle East at a time of heightened tensions between Tehran and the West.
Although Mr Morsi resigned from Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood to take the top job, Israel is wary of his election, fearing his Islamist record could jeopardise the chilly peace it has long enjoyed with its huge neighbour.
Iran's clerical leadership contends that the Arab Spring that toppled veteran Egyptian stroman Hosni Mubarak and other lontime US allies in the Arab world last year was inspired by its own 1979 Islamic revolution.