TEHRAN, Iran — Once again, Egypt and Iran appear to be heading toward rapprochement, with increasingly converging views on Syria bringing the two regional powers closer together.

Tehran and Cairo have long followed a pattern of enthusiasm about normalizing ties only to see rapprochement remain a mirage. In December 2003, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak held a groundbreaking meeting with his Iranian counterpart Mohammad Khatami on the sidelines of a UN technology summit in Geneva.

The meeting — the first between an Iranian and an Egyptian head of state since the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran — generated talk of rapprochement, but such a thing never occurred. More recently, former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad traveled to Cairo in February 2013, a landmark visit in which he was greeted by his Egyptian counterpart Mohammed Morsi on arrival — but again with no real subsequent warming of relations.

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This article was written by Rohollah Faghihi for Al-Monitor on Oct. 18, 2016. Rohollah Faghihi is a journalist who has worked for various Iranian media outlets.