CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt said on Friday it had received a request for Iranian naval vessels to pass through the Suez Canal, a proposal Israel's right-wing foreign minister has described as "provocative."
A Foreign Ministry spokesman told Reuters the request had been passed to the Defence Ministry and the Suez Canal Authority.
Egypt's military said the request had stated that the Iranian ships did not carry military equipment or nuclear or chemical contents. It said the two ships were currently in the Red Sea, which lies at the canal's southern end.
"The Ministry of Defence is currently studying the request," it said in a statement read to Reuters by an army source.
The source said the ministry and the armed forces were examining whether the ship contents matched the description in the written request and would make the necessary security arrangements for passage should the ships be allowed through.
A decision is likely on Friday or Saturday, the source said.
It was not clear when any decision on a crossing would be made. To pass through the strategic waterway, naval vessels need the approval of Egypt's foreign and defence ministries.
Iranian state television said on Thursday the two warships would be the first Iranian military vessels to transit the canal since the country's 1979 revolution.
Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said on Wednesday that Iran's plan to send the ships through the canal en route to Syria, an ally of Tehran, was a "provocation."
Israel's state-funded Channel One television said Lieberman, a stridently far-right partner in the conservative coalition, had spoken out of turn and that the Defence Ministry "had preferred to ignore" the ships' approach.
Iran's move is an unwelcome distraction for Egypt's interim military government, which has close ties to the United States and has been ruling since February 11, when President Hosni Mubarak stepped down in the face of a popular revolt.
The canal is a vital commercial and strategic artery between Europe and the Gulf region and Asia. It is also a major source of revenues for the Egyptian government.
Iran's semi-official Fars news agency reported on January 26 that Iranian navy cadets were going on a year-long training mission into the Red Sea and through Suez to the Mediterranean.
(Reporting by Marwa Awad; writing by Edmund Blair and Tom Pfeiffer; editing by Andrew Roche)
