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Ahead of a three-way meeting:
Netanyahu, Mubarak on peace talks
EGYPT: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Egyptian
President Hosni Mubarak were to meet on Sunday in a bid to revive peace
talks with the Palestinians ahead of a possible three-way meeting later
this month.
Netanyahu’s visit, his second since May, will coincide with the
arrival of US Middle East envoy George Mitchell in the region as
Washington continues its push to get the peace process back on track.
Israel’s expansion of Jewish settlements in the Palestinian West
Bank, which defies US pressure and Palestinian Authority president
Mahmud Abbas’s condition for resuming talks, is likely to top the agenda
in Cairo.
The two leaders are also expected to discuss the exchange of an
Israeli soldier held by the Islamist movement Hamas in the Gaza Strip
for more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.
The United States has sought to fast-track a peace process that would
lead to the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel. It has
floated the possibility of hosting a meeting between Netanyahu and Abbas
on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, according to Israeli
President Shimon Peres.
But both sides have rebuffed the US call for goodwill gestures that
would see a freeze to settlement construction in return for Arab states
beginning to normalise ties with Israel.
Arab countries have said normalisation will only come after
substantive peace talks, or a settlement to the conflict, and Abbas
insists that he will not meet Netanyahu before a complete end to
settlement construction..Cairo, Sunday,
AFP |
