Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit on Wednesday strongly condemned an Iranian documentary about the 1981 assassination of president Anwar Sadat, calling such works ”irresponsible”.
”We condemn this film in the strongest possible terms,” Abul Gheit told reporters in Cairo, two days after Egypt summoned Tehran’s envoy in Cairo to lodge a formal protest against the airing of the film.
”We tell our brothers in Iran they must stop producing these works which reflect a lack of responsibility,” the foreign minister said.
The Iranian film, entitled Assassination of a Pharaoh, says Sadat was killed for signing the 1978 Camp David Accords that led to a 1979 peace treaty with Israel, the first by an Arab country.
On Sunday, a Cairo daily reported that Sadat’s family was considering legal action against the Iranian producers of the documentary, which has already been shown on Iranian television.
Al-Masry al-Youm newspaper said then that the film, broadcast ”in honour of the martyrs of the Islamic renaissance”, deals with ”the revolutionary assassination of the treacherous Egyptian president at the hands of the martyr Khaled Islambouli”.
Islamic militant Islambouli was one of the soldiers who shot Sadat dead at a military parade in Cairo on October 6 1981. He was hanged for the killing in 1982 and subsequently had a Tehran road named after him.
”The producers should have asked for the family’s authorisation before making the film,” said Sadat’s daughter, Roqeya. ”Such slander will receive a strong response.”
Diplomatic ties between Egypt and Iran were severed in 1980, a year after the Islamic revolution, in protest against Egypt’s recognition of Israel, its hosting of the deposed shah and its support for Iraq during its 1980-1988 war with Iran.
Relations have recently warmed, with both countries signalling a willingness to restore ties. In January, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak held talks with Iran’s parliamentary Speaker Gholam Ali Hada Adel, the first such high-level meeting in almost 30 years.
In Iran, a Foreign Ministry source told the Isna news agency that the film did not represent Iran’s official position. ”Iran’s official stance should be found in the official statements of its leaders and the dealings between the two countries are based on friendship and brotherhood.” — Sapa-AFP