Will Rafsanjani’s death draw Iran, Egypt farther apart?

Chairman of the Expediency Discernment Council of the System (EDCS) and former Iranian President Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani died Jan. 8, and his death might have put a nail in the coffin of normalization between Egypt and Iran.

The Egyptian diplomatic reaction to the death of Rafsanjani was different from the Egyptian reaction to the death of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s mother in March 2015. While the Egyptian government chose to ignore the death of Sakineh Peivandi, Rouhani’s mother, two years ago, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry sent the deputy assistant foreign minister for protocol affairs, Ambassador Ashraf Mounir, on Jan. 12 to the Interests Section of Iran in Egypt to offer condolences to both the office manager and the Iranian government, on behalf of the Egyptian government.

Although the office in Cairo received several ambassadors from different countries, a diplomatic source in the Interests Section told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity that Iran deeply appreciated the Egyptian condolences in particular. He said that those in charge of the office warmly welcomed Mounir “because it was the first contact between the two countries at this level following a long time of strained relations, which suggests that the chances of improving relations and rapprochement between the two countries are increasing and are further applauded by the two governments.”

Egyptian-Iranian relations have been strained since the 1979 Islamic Revolution and the overthrow of Iran's last shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who had good relations with Egypt. Those ties had led former President Anwar Sadat to give Pahlavi political asylum in Egypt after the Islamic Revolution, thus resulting in a complete severing of diplomatic relations between the two countries in 1979.