Tehran, May 15 (IANS): An Iranian lawmaker said negotiations between Iran and Egypt are going on in Iraq and the two countries' relations will be restored in the near future.

Fada Hossein Maleki, a member of the Iranian parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, made the remarks in an interview with the semi-official Tasnim news agency, which was published on Sunday.

The Iranian and Egyptian embassies in the two countries will be re-opened in the next step, and a meeting will be arranged between Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi after that, he added.

In an interview published on Sunday by Iran's official news agency IRNA, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian was quoted as saying that he hoped Iran and Egypt would take reciprocal and new steps to improve relations, Xinhua news agency reported.

He stressed that Iran welcomes the expansion of relations with Egypt, adding Tehran and Cairo are in direct contact with each other via interest offices.

Iran and Egypt cut diplomatic relations in 1980. In recent years, Iran has announced readiness to mend ties with Egypt by settling differences on certain issues.

Following the March agreement between Iran and Saudi Arabia on the normalisation of their bilateral ties and the former's efforts to improve relations with regional Arab states over the past months, the likelihood of restoring relations between Tehran and Cairo has grown.