Tehran Debates Changing Street Name Honoring Sadat Killer
TEHRAN, May 21 (News Agencies) - Tehran's city council agreed to an urgent debate on changing the name of a street honoring the killer of Egyptian president Anwar Sadat, an issue which has strained Iranian-Egyptian relations, the state IRNA news agency said.
It said the council wanted to rename Khaled Eslambouli Street either for the "martyrs of the Intifada" (the Palestinian uprising) or Mohammad al-Durra, the Palestinian boy whose killing last year by Israeli troops shocked the world.
The bill changing the name will take priority in the reformist council's pending business, IRNA said.
Its approval in committee would then send the bill forward for a vote by the whole of the council.
Cairo has said that the street name is a barrier to restoring full diplomatic relations between the two countries.
Tehran mayor Morteza Alviri said he welcomed a change of name, IRNA reported, as controversial names could "cause annoyance for the two countries."
The two nations broke off ties shortly after Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution, after Cairo welcomed the deposed Shah, but relations slowly improved throughout the 1990s.
Amr Mussa, then Egypt's foreign minister, said in February that there was "no valid reason" why the two nations should not have full ties, but stopped short of calling for a total resumption of relations.
Eslambouli masterminded the 1981 murder of Sadat after Egypt became the first Arab nation to sign a peace treaty with Israel.
The street named in his honor, in central Tehran, also features a giant mural of Eslambouli.
