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Mubarak Ruled out “Visit without Objective, Vision” to Israel
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Mubarak (L) and U.S. Rep. Ben Gilman, during the Egyptian President’s trip to the U.S. in March.
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KUWAIT
CITY, July 15 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) – Egyptian President
Hosni Mubarak said he has ruled out a visit to Israel, giving away a
chance to win the Nobel Peace Prize, in an interview published by a
Kuwaiti newspaper Monday, July 15, 2002.
Mubarak
said he has turned down a proposal from U.S. lawmakers to make a
dramatic peace trip to Jerusalem. “I reject a visit without any
objective, result, vision or final settlement guaranteeing the
rights” of the Palestinians, he told the daily newspaper, Al-Siyassa.
In
the current absence of a path to peace, Mubarak said he turned down
the proposal from members of Congress whom he met during a visit to
the United States in June.
“Members
of Congress tried to lure me with a Nobel prize if I agreed to visit
Jerusalem to achieve a breakthrough in the [Middle East] crisis,” he
said.
Former
assassinated Egyptian President, Anwar Sadat, made a historic visit to
Jerusalem in 1977, paving the way for the signing of a peace treaty
between Egypt and Israel two years later.
Commenting
on U.S. President George W. Bush's calls for Palestinian President
Yasser Arafat to be replaced, Mubarak said he warned officials in
Washington during his visit last month against sidelining the veteran
Palestinian leader.
“I
stressed the seriousness of touching Arafat or trying to sideline him,
as well as the importance of benefiting from his long experience in
future negotiations,” the Egyptian President said.
Dismissing
Israeli reports that he saw eye-to-eye with Bush on the need to remove
Arafat, Mubarak stressed that he never agreed on such a move, pledging
otherwise.
“To
drop Arafat would be a serious mistake which we would all regret. The
man has experience and unifies around him the Palestinians inside and
outside” Palestine, he warned.
Mubarak further said that “war will lead to nowhere, as it has never
solved any dispute throughout history,” adding that “peaceful
negotiations are the only way out of the current crisis.”
Despite
signing the Oslo peace accords with the Palestinians, followed by
numerous agreements, consecutive Israeli governments have not
respected these agreements. The Israeli army has virtually reoccupied
almost all the Palestinian territories, imposing a chocking curfew on
the Palestinian people and leadership, and carrying out a policy of
assassinations, demolition and abductions.
On
the issue of Iraq and U.S. public talk about preparations for a mass
military attack to oust Iraqi President Saddam Hussien, Mubarak said
it would be “a wrong move” as the Middle East has “enough
crises” already. Such an attack will only lead to “a tragedy,”
he added.
As
regards the simmering situation on the Israeli-Lebanese borders,
Mubarak stressed that Israel must get out of the Lebanese Shebaa
Farms, so as to avoid Hezbollah attacks.
“If
the Israelis want seriously to diffuse the volatile situation on their
Northern borders and put an end to Hezbollah attacks, they have to
return Shebaa Farms to Lebanon,” Mubarak said.
Concerning
the Syrian-Israeli front, the Egyptian President said that “unlike
what the Israelis are trying to sell to the world, [Syrian President]
Bashar el-Assad wants real peace.”
Israel
occupied the Syrian Golan Heights during its 1967 aggression on its
Arab neighbors, and still refuses to withdraw from the Syrian
territories.
Syria
participated in the 1991 Madrid peace conference, organized and
sponsored by the United States and Russia to solve conflicts in the
Middle East. However, Israel’s refusal to withdraw from the Syrian
Golan in accordance with the land-for-peace formula on which the
Madrid conference was based, no serious negotiations have ever taken
place between Syria and Israel.
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