Egypt Trys Utmost to Defuse Regional Crisis

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Monday, October 21, 2002

Egypt Trys Utmost to Defuse Regional Crisis

The Middle East region, with Egypt inparticular, are witnessing intensified diplomatic and political moves and contacts to get rid of serious Palestinian and Iraqi crisis.

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The Middle East region, with Egypt inparticular, are witnessing intensified diplomatic and political moves and contacts to get rid of serious Palestinian and Iraqi crisis.

The Arab-Israeli conflict is undergoing its most critical stage and could remain like this for a long period as the conditions of violence in the Palestinian territories are deteriorated.

Iraqi issue is, meanwhile, becoming the top topic on the political agenda both inside and outside the region.

The country is under the threat of military action by the UnitedStates in the context of what Washington called "the war against terror and terrorists."

In order to defuse the regional crisis, Egypt has been significantly contributing into the international efforts in this regard.

Egyptian diplomatic sources told Xinhua that concerning the Palestinian issue, Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak has been in constant contact with US president George.W. Bush and cautioned theUS administration that keeping the situation like this would lead to serious consequences on all sides.

Addressing the army on the 29 anniversary of Egypt's October Victory in 1973, Mubarak said he saw no possibility in reaching peace between the Arabs and Israel in the presence of Israeli cabinet of Ariel Sharon who "pressed ahead with his brutal and criminal policies against the Israeli people."

"What happens in the Palestinian territories is part of the current Israeli policies represented in assassinating the Palestinian activists, destroying houses farms and trees, and imposing a catastrophic tight closure on the Palestinians which forebodes more violence and demise of peace voices," Mubarak denounced.

He called on the international community, particularly the United States to move and put pressure on Israel to drop its policies which menace the peace process and work to create an independent Palestinian state.

"Israel can not live in security or stability in the region unless it recognized the Palestinian right to an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital," he stressed.

Egypt has also played a major part in the pressure exercised by Washington on Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to lift the siegeon Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

It "reflected the US administration's confidence in the sound thought of president Mubarak and serious interest in his views regarding the events," diplomatic sources said.

Mubarak's efforts in this respect were fruitful considering specially as he is one of the key decision makers in the region andhas always been keen on achieving just, durable and comprehensive peace in the Middle East," the sources added.

The same things applied to the Iraqi issue as the efforts made by Egypt has had positive outcomes.

The contacts Mubarak made with Iraqi officials yielded an Iraqi willingness to the return of UN weapons inspectors to open its facilities for unconditional search.

"I asked the Iraqis to offer the necessary facilitations to the international weapons inspectors so that there could be no pretext for a military action against Iraq," Mubarak said.

Diplomatic sources praised that "the recent visits by Mubarak toSaudi Arabia, Syria, and Libya and his meetings with several Arab and European leaders and senior government officials in Cairo were on a great influence in developing the lucid Arab vision that the Arab world would give up the Palestinian rights or accept any military action against Iraq."

Just two days before Iraq announced its agreement to the return of international inspectors to resume their duties, Mubarak sent a letter to Iraqi president Saddam Hussein fully explaining Egypt viewpoint on the issue of Iraqi.

In this letter Mubarak advised that the inspectors should be permitted to return to Iraq and given free unimpeded access, and provocations should be avoided so that Washington can not find excuse for its potential military action.

Cairo maintained that there is still a chance to prevent the warin spite of the existing difficulties if Iraq refrained from arousing the foreign powers and from responding to the provocationsof the others.

Makram Mohamed Ahmad, editor-in-chief of the Egyptian weekly magazine AlMusawar said Egypt "has adopted a distinguished stand that is to fight on all fronts under the last moment so that war can not spark in the region and join efforts with the countries which seek the same objective."

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