CAIRO (Agencies) — Egypt and Iran agreed on Sunday to resume direct flights between their capitals, three decades after the two nations severed diplomatic relations, an AFP correspondent said.

Egypt's minister of civil aviation Ahmed Shafiq and Iranian vice president and tourism chief Hamid Baqaii oversaw the signing of a memorandum of understanding between Sameh Hefni, who heads Egypt's civil aviation authority and Hamid Ghavabesh, deputy chief of the Iranian national aviation company.
""This accord will replace the one signed between both countries in 1976 and is in line with the developments in air transport,"" Hefni told reporters. The agreement provides for 28 flights between Cairo and Tehran per week, but does not specify when flights will resume.
Iran severed ties with Egypt after it signed a peace deal with Israel and provided asylum to Iran's deposed leader, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Since then, the two countries have only maintained interest sections in each other's capitals.
An Iranian government delegation recently visited Egypt in what could be a prelude to the resumption of ties between the countries, according to Al-Jazeera.
""This move has been long in coming,"" said Karim Sadjapour, an Iran specialist at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a Washington think tank. ""What's remarkable isn't the resumption of direct flights between Tehran and Cairo, the two largest cities in the Middle East, but the fact that it has taken over 30 years for it to happen.""