Tehran to scrap street name honouring assassin of Egyptian president Sadat amid warming ties

Move to address decades-old grievance from Cairo signals diplomatic thaw

A mural of Khaled El Islambouli, assassin of Anwar Sadat, on a building in Iran. Reuters

Iran's capital has announced plans to scrap a street name that honoured one of the killers of former Egyptian president Anwar Sadat, a symbolic bone of contention in ties with Cairo since the assassination more than four decades ago.

Khaled El Islambouli Street in the north of Tehran was named after the military officer who led an operation to take out Mr Sadat during a military parade in Cairo in October 1981.

The naming has long been seen by Egypt as a deliberate provocation and has contributed to decades of diplomatic hostility. Tehran regarded Mr Sadat as a traitor for signing Egypt’s peace treaty with Israel in 1979.

Renaming the street signals a thaw in 45 years of strained ties between the two regional powers – one of the Middle East’s longest-standing rifts.

The decision was announced by Tehran’s city council, with a spokesman saying a committee had begun talks on replacing Mr El Islambouli’s name with another after co-ordination with Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The change was part of a routine review of street names in Tehran, the spokesman told Iran's Tasnim News Agency.

Iranian media reported that late Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed by an Israeli air strike on Beirut in September, has been floated as a potential replacement name.

From left, Egyptian president Anwar Sadat, US president Jimmy Carter and Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin sign the Camp David Accords at the White House in 1978. Reuters

Mr El Islambouli, a lieutenant in the Egyptian military, was executed in 1982 over his role in Mr Sadat’s assassination. The killing of the president was motivated by his signing of the Camp David Accords, the first peace treaty between an Arab state and Israel, which many in the Arab and Islamic world viewed as a betrayal of the Palestinian cause.

After the assassination, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Iran’s supreme leader at the time, hailed Mr El Islambouli as a martyr and called on Egyptians to rise up against what he described as Mr Sadat’s capitulation to Israel and the US. Tehran subsequently named the street after Mr El Islambouli and erected murals in his honour, souring relations with Cairo.

The decision to rename the road follows a visit to Cairo last week by Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who met Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El Sisi, Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty and International Atomic Energy Agency director general Rafael Grossi.

The talks, described as “fruitful” by both sides, constituted a significant step towards healing a regional divide that dates back to the aftermath of Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Mr Araghchi said in a speech in Cairo that diplomacy between Iran and Egypt had entered “a new phase”.

Egyptian officials have long regarded the street name as a major obstacle to building ties, seeing it as an affront to Mr Sadat’s legacy and a reminder of Iran’s revolutionary-era hostility.

For Iran, the renaming could represent a pragmatic shift in attitude towards its neighbours. By addressing Egypt's prolonged grievance, Tehran may be signalling a willingness to move beyond ideological rigidity and focus on co-operation. The gesture aligns with broader attempts by Iran to repair its image and reduce tension. It comes amid shifting regional dynamics, as Gulf nations such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE also begin engaging with Iran.

“There is a great deal of political will to boost bilateral relations and remove any obstacles that might stand in the way,” Mr Araghchi said after his meeting with Mr El Sisi.