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Egypt Reacts To Sharon Call For Aid Cut
JERUSALEM, March 23 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said Egypt will adopt a new stance toward Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon if there is any substance to reports he has called on the United States to end its massive military aid to Egypt.
On Wednesday, Israeli army radio reported that Sharon had made the request during his visit to the United States earlier in the week. He also accused Cairo of having a "negative influence" on the Middle East peace process.
In an interview published Friday in the government daily al-Ahram, Mubarak reacted by saying that if the radio report were true, "we will change our attitude toward Sharon." The Egyptian leader did not elaborate further.
Mubarak, who said there was no prospect of the United States agreeing to such a call, said: "If Sharon really said that, I will consider it to be an aggressive stance, but I do not want to adopt a position now." He did not say what stance he might take.
However, Sharon spokesman Raanan Gissin said on Friday that whether the United States provides military aid to Egypt or not is a purely a domestic U.S. issue, declining to comment further on whether Sharon had asked the U.S. to cut that aid.
Speaking to leaders of the U.S. Congress, Sharon expressed concern at the level of U.S. aid to Cairo, saying Egypt was under no significant strategic threat, the radio had said.
It added that Sharon, who as a general played a key role in stopping the Egyptian offensive against Israel in the 1973 Middle East war, was the first Israeli prime minister to make such a suggestion since the two countries signed a peace treaty in 1979.
U.S. military aid to Egypt in the current fiscal year amounts to $1.3 billion dollars, compared with $1.92 billion to Israel. Economic aid totals $735 million and $960 million dollars respectively.
The radio said Sharon, whose four-day U.S. visit ended Thursday, also accused Egypt of having a negative influence on the Middle East peace process, pointing to the withdrawal of its ambassador from Israel and its calls on other Arab states to break whatever ties they had with the Jewish state.
Referring to the question of aid, Mubarak told al-Ahram the United States has never demanded anything in return.
"Sometime back, they [the Americans] said that wanted to set up a [military] base here, but that issue was resolved from the outset. There was no secret request" from the United States, he said.
Mubarak, who is to travel to the United States for a meeting with President George W. Bush on April 2nd to discuss the peace process and bilateral relations, also told al-Ahram he was calling for increased U.S. investment in his country.
"We do not need [economic] aid, but investment, because the aid will diminish gradually and, in 10 years, it will have ended," he said.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Amr Mussa, who leaves next Wednesday for the United States to prepare for Mubarak's visit to Washington the following week, told reporters Friday: "We have much to say on Israel's armaments and on the danger they pose for the region."
Mussa called for a change in U.S. policy regarding Israel's security needs.
"Israeli military superiority, which certain circles speak of in the United States, is not an advantage to the security or interests of the United States," he said.
He added: "We cannot deny that a negative Israeli affect exists on the relations between the United States and Egypt, and with Arabs in general."
Mussa also said in an interview published Friday that the Palestinians will never allow Sharon to "bend" them into submission.
"The Palestinians will not agree to submit to Sharon's will, and nobody from our side will advise them to do it," Mussa said in the Yediot Aharonot daily.
"I also believe that the entire the Arab world will never accept Sharon's logic," he said.
Mussa was referring to Sharon's refusal to talk peace with the Palestinians, or to consider lifting the military closure of the West Bank and Gaza Strip until Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat quells the violence of the nearly six-month-old Palestinian uprising.
"Sharon says that, before all else, the Palestinians must bend and submit to his dictates and only after that, in the context of submission, the blockades and the military presence in the territories are open to discussion," Mussa said.
Mussa said he was "very pessimistic" about the future and did not see "any light at the end of the tunnel" regarding the ongoing conflict.
More than 440 people have died in the violence, most of them Palestinian.
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