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US Envoy in Cairo for Talks With Mubarak on Mideast Situation
United States Mideast envoy William Burns arrived Sunday morning to hold talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on the latest situation in the Middle East as efforts were under way to bolster the shaky Palestinian-Israeli ceasefire.
Burns, who acts as U.S. assistant secretary of state for Near East affairs, paid his visit to Egypt within the context of his region tour, Egypt's Middle East News Agency reported.
"It is obvious that the problem can not be solved through a military approach, and security can only be brought to all parties by political means," Burns said Saturday after a meeting with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
He also reaffirmed U.S. commitment to helping promote the implementation of the Mitchell report and called on the Palestinians and Israel to honor their security commitments.
The Mitchell report, released last month by an international panel led by former U.S. senator George Mitchell, urges the two sides to end violence immediately, adopt confidence-building measures and resume peace talks.
Burns' Mideast tour is aimed at laying groundwork for an upcoming visit by U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell to the region next week in an effort to consolidate the fragile ceasefire between the Palestinians and Israel.
The U.S.-brokered truce was put into effect on June 13, but sporadic shootings and confrontations between the Palestinians and Israelis have never stopped since then. The two sides are accusing each other of failing to stick to the agreed terms.
In the latest developments, a member of the Palestinian mainstream Fatah movement was killed Sunday morning in phone booth blast while using the public phone. And two Israeli soldiers were killed by a suicide bomber Friday afternoon in northern Gaza Strip.
Over 600 people, most of them Palestinians, have been killed since the outbreak of the Palestinian-Israeli bloodshed sparked by Israeli violation of an Islamic holy shrine in East Jerusalem last September.
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