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Mubarak Holds Talks with CIA Chief over Mideast Situation
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak here on Wednesday met with the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director George Tenet to discuss the current situation in the Middle East.
The meeting was part of ongoing efforts to ease tensions between the Palestinians and Israelis in the wake of the Tel Aviv suicide bombing that killed 20 Israelis and injured over 100 others, reported Egypt's Middle East News Agency, without giving further details.
Tenet arrived here earlier in the day as the start of his regional tour, aimed at building up the fragile ceasefire applied after the Tel Aviv blast and ending the eight-month-old Palestinian-Israeli bloodshed, which has killed over 570 people, most of them Palestinians.
US President George W. Bush said Tuesday that he was " optimistic enough" to send Tenet as a special envoy to help resume security cooperation between Israel and the Palestinians.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon announced a unilateral ceasefire two weeks ago, which the Palestinian side at that time claimed only as a "public relations ploy."
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat ordered a truce a day after a Palestinian suicide bomber blew himself up and killed 20 Israelis, most of them teenage girls, outside a Tel Aviv disco last Friday night.
Despite sporadic clashes, the ceasefire has been generally held in the past three days.
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