Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will pay a two-day state visit to Egypt early next month to attend the summit meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in Cairo on February 2-7.

Ahmadinejad is scheduled to travel to Cairo on February 6 at the invitation of Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi, Director for International Affairs at the Presidential Office Mohammad-Reza Forqani said on Wednesday.

He added that the Iranian president would take part in the summit in his capacity as the rotating chairman of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), which comprises nearly two-thirds of the member states of the UN General Assembly.


Forqani said Ahmadinejad’s participation in the Cairo summit would be of “special significance.”

The OIC, which was established in 1969, is the second-largest inter-governmental organization after the United Nations and has 57 member states spread over four continents.

During the summit, Egypt will take over the OIC presidency for the next three years.

Morsi extended his invitation to Ahmadinejad during a recent visit to Egypt of Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi.

Iran severed ties with Egypt after Cairo signed the 1978 Camp David Accord with Israel and offered asylum to Iran's deposed monarch Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

However, the Egyptian revolution in February 2011 which led to the ouster of Egypt’s former dictator, Hosni Mubarak, led to relative thaw in relations between Tehran and Cairo.
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