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Mubarak's U.S. Agenda Full
WASHINGTON, April 2 (News Agencies) - Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and President George W. Bush vowed Monday to cooperate on forging Middle East peace as the Israeli foreign minister said he saw hope despite escalating violence.
Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, speaking in Oslo, said he saw "light at the end of the tunnel."
Peres did not elaborate on the remark made following meetings with Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg and Foreign Minister Thorbjoern Jagland, but asked if Israel regarded the situation in the region as grave, Peres responded: "Yes, grave enough to have negotiations now."
During a joint Oval Office appearance after a closed-door meeting with Mubarak, the first Arab leader to meet with the president since he took office January 20th, Bush said the United States remained "very engaged in the Middle East and will remain so."
"The role for strong countries like ourselves and Egypt is to encourage, first, the violence to end, and secondly, for discussions to begin again. And I'm very optimistic and hopeful that we will be able to achieve that," he added.
Mubarak, who chided in an interview released Saturday that the U.S. approach to the region cannot be "hands off," said he retained "great hopes" that Bush would exert "maximum effort" to help foster an end to some six months of deadly clashes.
"He is committed to work for peace," assured the Egyptian president, whose visit came just two weeks after Bush received Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, and a week before Jordanian King Abdullah II comes to town.
Bush also indicated that U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell had discussed the situation in the Middle East with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon early Monday, and aides say Bush himself has made over two dozen calls to regional leaders.
Powell and Sharon discussed "the overall situation, the steps that we were looking for between the parties to re-establish calm, to re-establish some peace and to get back on track with direct discussions," said State Department spokesman Richard Boucher.
According to a senior Israeli diplomatic source, Sharon briefed Powell about the conflict with the Palestinians and defended Israeli action against "terror", saying Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority was not working to prevent attacks.
"The prime minister reviewed the situation on the ground and clarified the government's position regarding its determined fight against terror and the easing up of restrictions on the Palestinian population," the source said.
"The Palestinian Authority is not working to prevent terror attacks as it is committed to do, which does not leave Israel any choice but to carry out the necessary actions for fighting terror and for defending its civilians and soldiers," the source said Sharon told Powell.
Bush and Mubarak spoke to reporters after an Israeli soldier was shot dead as fierce gun battles flared in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in the wake of the killing of an Islamic Jihad militant by Israeli forces.
The latest deaths brought the number of people killed as a direct result of the Palestinian uprising which broke out on September 28th to 467 - 382 Palestinians, 71 Israelis, 13 Israeli Arabs and one German.
A senior U.S. administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, all but ruled out any personal mediation by Bush until the violence ends.
Meanwhile, the Palestinians officially called on the United States to resume its role as the leading mediator in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and to abandon its policy of "unconditional support" for Sharon.
"We ask the United States to resume its leadership and mediating role in the current conflict," Palestinian information Yasser Abed Rabbo said in a statement.
In other Middle East concerns, Mubarak told Bush that the "partition of Sudan was not an option," Egypt's Foreign Minister Amr Mussa said Tuesday.
In an interview with the Egyptian daily Al-Gomhuriya to be published Wednesday, Mussa quoted Mubarak as saying he insisted on the "unity of all Sudanese territory" and was opposed to any partition project.
"Whether Sudan adopts a federal system or not is an internal issue," Mussa added, but insisted that, "Sudan is a priority for Cairo... Just like Palestine is a priority."
Mussa also said negotiations were underway between Sudan and the United States.
During last week's Arab summit in Amman, Mubarak and his Sudanese counterpart Omar el-Beshir agreed Cairo would attempt to improve U.S.-Sudanese relations.
Sudan recalled its ambassador to the United States in 1998 after Washington bombed a Khartoum pharmaceutical plant, which it said was producing chemical weapons.
Washington had two years previously put Sudan on its blacklist of rogue states, accusing it of supporting "terrorist" movements.
Sudan has been ravaged by an 18-year civil war between the Arab Muslim north and rebels from the mainly animist and Christian south.
However, since 1995, northern opposition groups have joined the southern rebels in battling the government in Khartoum.
In other business Tuesday, Egypt is seeking a free trade agreement with the United States that could offer U.S. companies "a doorway" to Africa, the Middle East and Europe, Mubarak announced.
The Egyptian leader, in a speech prepared for delivery to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said such an accord would consolidate a decade of reforms in Egypt that have expanded the role of the private sector, reduced government regulations and opened the economy to greater foreign investment.
"In this visit we are approaching the new administration with an offer to initiate discussions that will lead eventually to a free trade agreement - one that will bind our two countries in progress and one that will preserve the successes of our reforms," Mubarak told a luncheon audience.
"We offer a doorway to Africa, Middle East and soon to Europe."
Egypt is already part of free trade areas that cover Arab countries of the Middle East and most of east Africa, according to Mubarak, who added that Cairo had also initialed a partnership arrangement with the European Union.
Two-way trade between the United States and Egypt last year came to $4.2 billion, representing U.S. exports of $3.3 billion and imports worth $0.9 million, according to the Chamber of Commerce.
The Chamber earlier Tuesday announced the opening of an Office of U.S.-Egypt Business Partnership Development to promote U.S. investment in the Egyptian economy.
"This agreement will lead to an expansion of trade and investment between the United States and Egypt and is the first step toward a possible trade agreement on a mutually beneficial, reciprocal basis," said Chamber president Thomas Donohue.
The United States and another Arab nation, Jordan, worked out an agreement last year that would eliminate all tariffs on goods and services traded between the two countries over 10 years. Congress must now approve the deal.
Mubarak sought to convince U.S. businessmen that Egypt, having embraced the free market, was a sound venue for their operations.
"The Egypt of tomorrow is centered on continued deregulation, greater foreign and domestic investment, the building of human capital and the continued opening to the world economy," he said.
The state monopoly in telecommunications is being dismantled and the private sector is becoming a growing partner in electricity generation, Mubarak said.
Citing recent oil and gas discoveries in the Mediterranean basin, he predicted that, "Egyptian energy can soon power industry across the Middle East through a regional electric grid and a network of gas pipelines."
Egypt is anxious to promote its exports to the U.S. market and to attract investment as it is weaned off annual U.S. economic assistance that amounted to $735 million last year.
But the U.S. ambassador in Cairo, Daniel Kurtzer, had said many investors tell him Egypt still has a ways to go to create the right business environment.
In a speech to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Egypt on March 13th, he cited such barriers to business as customs and red tape, corporate tax burdens, slow-moving courts and slow efforts at privatization.
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