CAIRO - Egypt said Sunday it was reinstating its ambassador to the Vatican, more than a month after she was recalled over 'unacceptable' comments made Pope Benedict XVI.
Ambassador Lamia Mekheimar will return to the Vatican on Wednesday in light of 'positive messages' recently sent to Egypt by Vatican officials, Egypt's foreign ministry said in a press statement. Mekheimar was recalled in January after a speech by the pope to foreign diplomats in which he referred to the violence against Christians in Iraq and an attack on a church in Egypt's coastal city of Alexandria. Benedict then called on governments in majority Muslim countries to increase efforts to protect their Christian populations. The Egyptian foreign ministry said the statements were an 'unacceptable interference in its domestic affairs.' Egyptian authorities have described the New Year's Eve attack on a church in Alexandria which left 23 people dead as an act of terrorism, and have rejected allegations that Coptic Christians are persecuted in Egypt. Official figures estimate that Christians comprise between 10 and 15 per cent of Egypt's population.
