Issue No.589
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6 - 12 June 2002 Issue No.589 Home news |
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 | Recommend this page | ||
Unifying positions
Preparing for his talks in Washington which begin today, President Hosni Mubarak and his aides held a series of meetings with various Arab, American and European officials, reports Nevine Khalil. Mubarak also sent separate envoys to the Palestinian and Israeli leaders to sound out their views on the latest ideas. The week-long diplomatic flurry began last Thursday when US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs William Burns came to Cairo, and was followed by German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer on Saturday.
Click to view captionIntensive diplomatic consultations marked the week as Mubarak readied to travel to the US. Meeting with Saudi Arabia's Al-Faisal (top), Mubarak also sent top aide El-Baz for talks with Sharon
The next day, CIA Director George Tenet made Egypt the first leg of a six-stop regional tour to gauge Arab support for the sweeping reform measures of Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority (PA). Last month, Tenet had held intensive security talks in Washington with the intelligence chiefs of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the PA and Israel to seek approval and guarantees of reform plans. Syrian Foreign Minister Abdel-Halim Khaddam was also in town on Sunday to deliver and take back messages from and to President Bashar Al-Assad.
On the eve of his departure for Washington via London, Mubarak received Saudi Foreign Minister Saud Al-Faisal on Tuesday. Al-Faisal, whose country sponsored the latest Arab peace initiative, told reporters that the meeting was necessary ahead of Mubarak's trip "since the two countries have recently had many contacts and consultations with Arab and international parties." He added that in Riyadh and Cairo "opinions are the same regarding the situation in the region."
Mubarak's chief political adviser Osama El-Baz was dispatched to Israel last Friday for talks with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Defence Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer. He informed the Israeli leadership of what was required of them to make the current peace-making efforts a success.
He insisted, moreover, that Arafat was the only reliable Palestinian leader capable of concluding a durable peace. On Saturday, Egypt's Chief of Intelligence Omar Suleiman went to Ramallah for talks with Arafat for a briefing on the latest moves.
Mubarak is expected over the next three days to fine-tune with US President George W Bush and his administration a plan for a settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher said that Mubarak's trip would provide "a new chance for peace". Cairo's ideas include a strict timeline for major PA security and political reforms, the proclamation of a Palestinian state as early as 2003, the official admission of Palestine into the United Nations, and continuous negotiations between the Palestinians and Israelis until a final agreement is reached.
"Movement on the peace track," Maher said, "does not hinge on what Israel accepts or rejects, there is an influential world opinion at work."
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