Khatami-Mubarak handshake highlights deepening Arab-Iranian links

[NNN0LHI]

Bush the uniter strikes again.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20031212/wl_mideast_afp/iran_egypt_arabs_iraq&cid=1514&ncid=1473

TEHRAN (AFP) - A widely publicized handshake between Iranian President Mohammed Khatami and Egypt's Hosni Mubarak (news - web sites) has highlighted the growing rapport between Iran and the Arab world, eased by the overthrow of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.


Khatami and Mubarak huddled briefly Wednesday outside a UN technology summit in Geneva, the first meeting of top leaders from the two countries since they broke off diplomatic ties after Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution.


Mubarak made clear it was Khatami who had initiated the meeting, defining their relationship as "normal". But little else filtered out from their discussion and there was no word on a possible reopening of embassies.


Last January, Mubarak ruled out a normalization of relations with Iran, accusing the Islamic Republic of sheltering "Egyptian terrorists".

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[rocktivity]

1. Are we to infer

that this has the potential to be Georgie's worst nightmare?


rocknation

[pinto]

3. can you see B*sh having to ask moderate Iranians for help

with an increasingly "restive" Shi'ite population in Iraq? He can't even deal with the Western European country that gave us the Statue of Liberty....

Strange scenario, but not too far-fetched in this region.

[mmm]

2. very interesting