Barak in Egypt for Talks with MubarakIsraeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak arrived in Alexandria on the Mediterranean coast Thursday to hold talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on Israel's peace negotiations with the Palestinians.Egyptian Prime Minister Atef Obeid greeted Barak upon arrival at the airport and accompanied him to Ras el-Teen Palace on the seafront to meet Mubarak. Barak was expected to brief the Egyptian leader, a key player in the Middle East, on his own views on the Camp David peace summit with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. He reportedly would ask Mubarak to try to persuade Arafat to adopt a less "uncompromising" stance on the question of Jerusalem. Arafat and Barak ended their 15-day talks in the United States last Tuesday without an agreement on the thorniest issues, including the status of Jerusalem, the fate of Palestinian refugees and Jewish settlers and the borders of a future Palestinian state. The Palestinians want Arab East Jerusalem as the capital of their future state while Israel insists that the holy city, sacred to Muslims, Jews and Christians, is its "eternal and indivisible" capital, a claim never so far internationally recognized. Barak came to Egypt one day after Arafat met Mubarak on the last leg of a tour of Arab states garnering support following the Camp David summit. |
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