18 - 24 April 2002
Issue No.582
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 18 - 24 April 2002 Issue No.582 |
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Decide now!
The situation in the region has reached critical mass, President Hosni Mubarak said yesterday, and it is now time for the players in the peace process to "stand up and say their word: we are with peace or against peace." In a highly-charged interview with the Middle East News Agency (MENA), Mubarak said that the world had plunged into a state of "absurdity and schizophrenia", because there is "a huge gap between the words we hear and the actions we see in reality."Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Coiln Powell made a stopover in Cairo yesterday to brief his Egyptian and Jordanian counterparts on the results of his 10-day mission in the region. A scheduled meeting between Powell and the president was cancelled because Mubarak was reportedly "indisposed."
Before meeting with Powell, Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher was briefed on the telephone by Palestinian President Yasser Arafat about his meeting with Powell, a few hours earlier. Maher told reporters that the impression he got from Arafat was that they "were not pleased with the meeting [because] it did not achieve their goals."
The Americans, Mubarak said in the interview, were "sending mixed signals, while the Europeans are still trying to unify their position." However, Mubarak asserted that "it is about time for the Europeans to use the many forms of leverage they have to pressure Israel into bringing about peace and stability."
"I must stress that the manner and policies of the Israeli government will not achieve the goal it is seeking -- security --, but rather the opposite is true," warned Mubarak, adding that the escalating violence in the Middle East could "extend beyond the region's borders."
There is but one way out of this situation, Mubarak said, which is for the parties to "head to the negotiating table and rebuild the bridges of confidence." Israel, the president insisted, must stop all military operations, complete withdrawal from Palestinian-controlled areas and implement security arrangements in accordance with the Tenet plan, and the Mitchell recommendations.
The world has to decide now, Mubarak said: what will it be "peace or chaos?"
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