(MENAFN- Jordan Times) There were several firsts and diversions from tradition that marked Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi's participation in the summit of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) in Tehran last week, where he handed over the NAM presidency to his Iranian counterpart, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
It was the first appearance of an elected Muslim Brotherhood president at any NAM summit. Morsi opted to accept the Iranian invitation to be in Tehran, with which Cairo has not had full diplomatic relations for three decades.
Morsi's speech at the summit was revolutionary. Whoever wrote it needs to be praised. It was indeed characteristic of him to invoke the Holy Koran and the Prophet. His addition, "and may the peace of God be on the holy family of the Prophet" might have been designed to send a positive message to his Shiite hosts who are said to have been offended by remarks he made during a July visit to Saudi Arabia.
Morsi also paid the most unusual tribute in a political speech at an international summit to the Sahaba (close associates) of the Prophet Mohammad: Abu Bakr, Omar, Othman and Ali.
A report appearing on Alahramonline.org said the reference to Ali could have been well received by the Shiite audience had it not come after references to Abu Bakr, Omar and Othman, whose roles in early Muslim history is not even mentioned in the history books of Iranian schools.
Morsi also referred to Gamal Abdel Nasser, the late Egyptian president who played a key role in establishing the NAM in the 1950s.
"At the time Nasser was expressing the will of the people (of Egypt) to defy colonisation," Morsi said in a rare reference to the late president who was succeeded by two others. All three presidents Egypt had since the military overthrew a monarchy in 1952 came from the ranks of the military and kept the Muslim Brotherhood suppressed.
While talking about Middle East issues and the Palestinian problem, Morsi made no reference to the two-state solution that was championed by his predecessor Hosni Mubarak, who was toppled in a people's revolution in February last year. He referred to Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails and the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people - issues that do not figure in much of official Egyptian discourse on the Palestinian problem.
The most explosive part of Morsi's speech came when he all but equated the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad to the Israeli occupation of Palestine, when he referred to "the struggle for freedom by the Palestinian and Syrian peoples".
Morsi said the Assad regime "had lost all legitimacy" and it was not enough to show sympathy towards the Syrian people, but the time had come to act upon this sympathy. He said it was an "ethical duty" to support the Syrian people against the "oppressive regime" in Damascus.
"Our solidarity with the struggle of the Syrian people against an oppressive regime that has lost its legitimacy is an ethical duty as it is a political and strategic necessity," Morsi said.
"We all have to announce our full solidarity with the struggle of those seeking freedom and justice in Syria, and translate this sympathy into a clear political vision that supports a peaceful transition to a democratic system of rule that reflects the demands of the Syrian people for freedom."
Surely, the comment would not have been pleasing to his Iranian hosts who remain staunch allies of the Assad regime and refer to the rebellion in Syria as "unrest". The Syrian delegation chose to leave the conference hall in protest against the comment.
Morsi must have raised eyebrows when he described the host country as "the sister Islamic republic of Iran".
Commentators in the Western media have criticised Morsi for travelling to Iran. They pointed out that the presence of leaders like him at the NAM summit will allow the Iranian leadership to tell the Iranians that the world approves of what the regime is doing. Some also noted that the Iranian regime had crushed the opposition Green Movement and suppressed demands for political reforms. They reminded Morsi that he himself had come to power through a revolution and therefore he should not have accepted the Iranian invitation. But Morsi is acting based on Egyptian interests.
It remains to be seen how soon he will act to restore diplomatic relations with Iran, but there is indeed a schism between Cairo and Tehran.
Egypt is keen to make its way back as the "big brother" in the Arab world, a position it lost in the wake of the ouster of the Mubarak regime. Morsi cannot afford to be seen as cozying up with Iran, which stands accused of meddling in the internal affairs of Arab countries. At the same time, restoring diplomatic ties with Tehran is only a correction of an abnormality and need not be seen as an alliance.
Ideologically, the two countries do not have much in common. Morsi's speech in Tehran showed that he is on his way to reassert Egypt's role on the regional and international scene. What he said was what many Egyptians wanted their president to say.
Morsi, who was given an impressive welcome upon his return to Cairo late Thursday, definitely won a few more minds and hearts of the Egyptian people and this strengthens his hand, which will be shaping the future of Egypt. But he could alienate liberal and secular Egyptians if he tries to impose the Muslim Brotherhood's agenda on the country.
The writer, who worked as a senior editor and writer for The Jordan Times for 20 years, now works for the UAE-based Gulf Today newspaper.
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