Egypt scholar scolds Ahmadinejad over Sunni rights

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad arrived in Cairo on Tuesday for the first trip by an Iranian head of state to Egypt since the 1979 revolution, underlining the more open ties that have developed since Egyptians elected an Islamist head of state.
   
President Mohamed Mursi kissed Ahmadinejad as he disembarked from his plane at Cairo airport, footage broadcast by Egyptian state television showed.
   
Such a visit would have been unthinkable during the rule of Hosni Mubarak, the military-backed autocrat whose 30 years in power safeguarded Egypt's peace treaty with Israel and resulted in deeper ties between Cairo and the West.


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Egypt's top Sunni Muslim scholar told Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Shi'ite Iran on Tuesday that his country must give full rights to Sunnis living in Iran and refrain from interfering in the affairs of Gulf Arab states.   

Grand Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb, the head of al-Azhar mosque and university, also urged Ahmadinejad to "respect Bahrain as a sisterly Arab state", according to a statement issued by al-Azhar's media office.   

It said Sheikh al-Tayeb also rejected "the extension of Shi'ite reach" in Sunni countries. They met on the first visit by an Iranian head of state to Egypt since the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran, which overthrew the former shah.

 
REUTERS