Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi. Photo: wiki commons.

During a meeting with Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi today in Cairo, Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi extended an invitation to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to attend an Islamic summit scheduled for February 7th in Cairo, Gaza-based Palestine Today reported.

The summit is expected to address the “Palestinian cause,” the Syrian crisis, combating poverty, the situations in Afghanistan and Somalia as well as Islamaphobia.

Salehi also announced that he had extended an invitation on behalf of Ahmadinejad for Morsi to visit Tehran.

Egypt’s foreign ministry said that the two leaders “exchanged views on the Syrian crisis and means of finding a solution” to the conflict which the UN says has killed more than 60,000 people.

On Tuesday Iranian officials threw their support behind a speech made Sunday by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad that was rejected by the Syrian opposition and western governments.

The two countries have been cozying up to one another in recent months as relations continue to thaw following the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak and the rise of the Islamist government in Cairo. Relations between Iran and Egypt were almost non-existent while Mubarak was in office.

On Tuesday it was reported that Qassem Suleimani, the commander of the Qods Force, a division of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps which conducts special operations outside Iran, visited Egypt at the end of December to discuss security strategy with Morsi’s government.