Muhammed Mursi, the first Egyptian leader to set foot in Iran in decades, caused a storm on Thursday when he slammed the Syrian regime as “oppressive” and urged backing for rebels out to topple President Bashar al-Assad.
Mursi’s address to the Non-Aligned Movement summit in Tehran embarrassed Damascus’s staunch Iranian backers and drew a sharp retort from Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem, who told Iran’s Al-Alam television the Egyptian president had broken the NAM tradition “by interfering in the affairs of Syria”.
Egypt’s state media said Mursi’s address sparked a walkout by the Syrian delegation, but Muallem said he merely left the hall for the interview with Al-Alam before returning.
“The revolution in Egypt is the cornerstone for the Arab Spring, which started days after Tunisia and then it was followed by Libya and Yemen and now the revolution in Syria against its oppressive regime,” Mursi said in his speech.
“Our solidarity with the struggle of Syrians against an oppressive regime that has lost its legitimacy is an ethical duty, and a political and strategic necessity,” he added.
Mursi, whose Muslim Brotherhood movement is affiliated with one of Syria’s main opposition groups, earlier on Thursday became the first Egyptian leader to visit Iran since the Islamic revolution in 1979 when he landed in Tehran.
Egypt severed ties with Iran after the 1979 Islamic Revolution brought to power a theocracy that opposed Egypt’s peace treaty with Israel and welcomed the assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, who forged the deal.