Mubarak Talks with Leaders by Phone on Mideast PeacemakingEgypt was continuing its efforts to push forward Palestinian-Israeli peace talks after an Egypt- sponsored three-way summit with the two sides scheduled on Thursday was cancelled.President Hosni Mubarak exchanged phone calls on Friday with UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, US President Bill Clinton and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, the state-run MENA news agency reported. He talked with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak by phone overnight Thursday. Mubarak exchanged views with the UN chief on the current contacts aimed at restarting the Middle East peace talks and discussed ways of removing obstacles to latest US peace proposals for reaching a final settlement between Palestinians and Israelis. The Egyptian leader also discussed with Clinton late in the day on the Palestinian and Israeli stances towards the US proposals, the news agency said without giving further details. Egypt, the first Arab country to sign a peace treaty with Israel in 1979, has been playing a key mediating role in the Middle East peace process. All these phone calls came after the three-way summit between Mubarak, Barak and Arafat scheduled for Thursday afternoon to discuss the US peace plan in Egypt's Red Sea resort of Sharm el Sheikh was cancelled at the last minute. Barak refused to attend the summit after the Palestinian leadership expressed deep reservations over the American proposals, which give Palestinian sovereignty over Arab neighborhoods and al- Aqsa mosque compound in East Jerusalem in return for the Palestinian waiving of rights of return for the some 3.7 million refugees displaced since the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. Palestinian and Israeli negotiators started their separate talks with US officials last week in a last-ditch attempt to find a common ground to resume the stalled peace process before Clinton leaves office on January 20. At the end of the talks on last Saturday, Clinton raised proposals of compromise on East Jerusalem, the Palestinian refugees' right of return and the borders of a future Palestinian state. Israel has accepted the proposals in principle. |
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