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Al-Ahram Weekly 30 March - 5 April 2000 Issue No. 475 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 30 March - 5 April 2000 Issue No. 475
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Special Focus Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons 'Fully engaged on all tracks'
By Nevine Khalil
The final day of President Hosni Mubarak's visit to the US includes talks with Secretary of Defence William Cohen on "mutual security and interests" and the continued modernisation of Egypt's military arsenal, according to National Security Council (NSC) spokesman P J Crowley.
Today's meeting will crown an eventful week which saw Mubarak at the White House for talks with President Bill Clinton and, for the first time, a meeting of the two chief executives with Arab-Americans; on Capitol Hill for whirlwind meetings with Congressmen; touring the booming technology corridor of Northern Virginia and meeting with the director of the World Bank James Wolfensohn.
During the visit, more than $500,000 was collected for the construction of the Bibliotecha Alexandrina at a fund-raiser attended by Mrs Suzanne Mubarak, who also presided over discussions of women issues at the World Bank yesterday.
For two hours on Tuesday, Mubarak brainstormed with administration officials on regional issues. Perhaps the most important of the wide range of issues discussed by Mubarak and Clinton are prospects for regional peace-making on all tracks with the two agreeing to work closely to resolve problems along the Palestinian and Syrian tracks.
NSC spokesman Crowley said the two leaders are "very comfortable with each other" and have a "valued and very productive" relationship. But he dampened expectations for Tuesday's talks, saying they were "not about accomplishment, [but] continuing consultations."
Clinton briefed Mubarak on his meeting with Syrian President Hafez Al-Assad in Geneva two days earlier, in which Clinton asked Assad to come back with some ideas on how to forge ahead with peace-making. "[Clinton] hopes that all parties will remain fully engaged on all tracks," White House spokesman Joe Lockhart told reporters. The Americans want the Syrians to "spend some time working through some of their ideas and come back to us", noted Lockhart.
While many described the Clinton-Assad summit as a failure because it did not re-launch negotiations on the Syrian track, Mubarak had a more hopeful outlook. "It's not a step forward but it doesn't make us pessimistic," Mubarak told reporters, with Clinton at his side.
According to Mubarak, a major stumbling block on the Syrian track is Israel's insistence -- and Syria's refusal -- that Lebanon join the negotiations. Mubarak told Barak last week that he "shouldn't create any problem during negotiations because the Syrians may refuse anything [that has to do] with Lebanon [participating] for the time being. Lebanon is going to join the negotiations later on." In line with Barak's verbal pledge to Mubarak "that he was ready to give back the Golan Heights" the Egyptian president advised the Syrians to "do just as we did with the Israelis" -- ie take back all territories occupied during the 1967 War.
Washington expressed its hope that Mubarak would "use this influence" to move the peace process forward, but did not make "any specific request," according to US sources.
Minutes before the meeting with Clinton, Mubarak received a telephone call form Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, and the two are expected to meet in Cairo soon. A day earlier, Mubarak held talks with Palestinian negotiators whose talks with the Israelis in Washington ran into snags this week. Washington believes that Mubarak holds "a unique position of leadership within the region" and, therefore, can throw his weight behind the relaunching of talks, Lockhart said.
Mubarak said that the peace process cannot remain stagnant much longer. "The US and Egypt are making a tremendous effort," he asserted.
"The ball is in [Assad's] court now and I'm [waiting] to hear from him," Clinton said. He added that the Israelis have made "very, very serious efforts on all tracks" and that Barak wants to move "as quickly as he can" on all tracks.
Foreign Minister Amr Moussa said that Clinton pledged his full attention and interest in the peace process "until the last day of his tenure."
In an indication of Cairo's optimism, Mubarak invited Clinton to attend the next Middle East/North Africa (MENA) conference on regional economic cooperation, which is expected later this year, suggesting that Cairo is prepared to host the conference. It had earlier said that it would delay taking a decision on hosting the conference until real progress was made in peace-making. Last year's MENA conference was cancelled because of the deadlock in the peace process.
Mubarak scored high on the bilateral agenda when Egypt signed an agreement with Lucent Technologies on domain name registration on the Internet, and concluded a second with IBM that will allow thousands of Egyptian graduates to improve their computer skills.
Among the bilateral issues the two presidents discussed was the crash of EgyptAir flight 990 on 31 October, but Egyptian officials, including Mubarak, declined to comment on the ongoing investigation.
Additional reporting Thomas Gorguissian
