Peres, Mubarak hold talks on Gaza withdrawal

SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Monday (AFP) Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres held talks Monday with Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak on Israel's pullout from Gaza slated to start in mid-August, Egyptian officials said.

Peres met the Egyptian leader in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh hot on the heels of US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who said she had also discussed the issue with Mubarak.

Mubarak and Peres had head-to-head talks before being joined by their aides, the official Egyptian news agency MENA reported.

Egypt's Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit and intelligence chief Omar Suleiman - a key mediator in talks between Israel and the Palestinians - took part in the discussions.

Peres already met Sunday in Israel with Abul Gheit to discuss the removal of the 21 Jewish settlements and their estimated 8,000 inhabitants from the small Palestinian territory bordering Egypt.

At the talks, Abul Gheit urged Israel to open Palestinian land, air and sea exits from Gaza and asked that Israel sanction the reopening of the airport in the southern part of the territory.Meanwhile US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made a major pitch Monday for democratic reforms in the Middle East but got a dose of Muslim anger on the latest leg of a whirlwind regional tour.

Rice told conservative Arab leaders the United States would no longer tolerate oppression in the name of stability, putting allies Egypt and Saudi Arabia on notice as well as familiar targets Iran and Syria. "We are supporting the democratic aspirations of all people," Rice told 600 scholars and students at the American University in Cairo in the keynote address of her six-day swing.

"Throughout the Middle East, the fear of free choices can no longer justify the denial of liberty," she said. "It is time to abandon the excuses that are made to avoid the hard work of democracy."

She echoed a key theme of US President George W. Bush's second term, that global democracy was the best antidote to Islamic extremism and the spread of terrorism.

"For 60 years, my country, the United States pursued stability at the expense of democracy in the Middle East - and we achieved neither.

Now, we are taking a different course," she said.

But Rice's message drew less than an enthusisatic reception in one of Washington's staunchest partners in the Middle East.

Her speech produced no major applause, merely a polite ovation at the end. The biggest hand was reserved for audience members who questioned her on alleged war crimes against the Palestinians and abuses of the Koran.