Americans Must Stop the Injustice: Mubarak
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Mubarak warned that opening a second front with strikes against Iraq would only aggravate the destabilization of the region.
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PARIS,
July 24 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Egyptian President Hosni
Mubarak, who arrives in Paris Wednesday, July 24, for talks on the
Middle East, said in an interview that the peace process would not
advance without Yasser Arafat as the Palestinian Authority chief is
“the only Palestinian capable of making concessions.”
“The
day that negotiations resume, he will be the only one who will dare to
make the necessary concessions (...) the only one who will be able to
get the concessions accepted by the Palestinians,” Mubarak said in
an interview with the French daily newspaper, Le Figaro, published
Wednesday.
“Arafat
will have to be made to move but, without him, the peace process will
not advance,” said the Egyptian leader, adding: “We need Arafat to
boost the peace process. So he must stay on until the end of the
process ... to get rid of Arafat today would be to unleash chaos.”
However,
“If Arafat is the only one to make concessions, the Palestinians
will not forgive him. He needs Israeli concessions.”
The
Americans, Mubarak said, “must stop the injustice that consists of
loudly condemning the faults of the Palestinians while closing their
eyes to those of the Israelis.”
The
Egyptian president said an international peace conference, backed by
France, could be “the last chance solution” if all else failed,
but he warned that such a conference would take lengthy preparation.
Stressing
that opening a “second front” with strikes against Iraq would only
“aggravate the destabilization” of the region.
Mubarak
said: “If (U.S. President George W.) Bush insists on eliminating the
Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, he must eliminate them everywhere
else (...) doesn’t Israel also have a particularly sophisticated
arsenal, a particularly dangerous panoply?”
Mubarak
was due to arrive Wednesday in Paris, and to meet Thursday, July 25,
with French President Jacques Chirac.
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