CAIRO, September 25 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak traveled on Wednesday, September 25, to Riyadh to discuss the Israeli siege of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat’s headquarters and the Iraqi crisis, an Egyptian official said.

Mubarak’s meeting with Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz will be “in the framework of Egypt’s efforts to prevent an escalation in the region,” the official told Agence France Presse (AFP).

Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher and Information Minister Safwat al-Sherif are part of Mubarak’s delegation.

Qatar’s Al-Jazeera satellite channel said Mubarak would study with Prince Abdullah the possibility of holding an Arab summit, but officials here and in Riyadh did not confirm.

Saudi Arabia and Egypt have pressed Washington to exert pressure on Israel to lift the nearly six-day siege of Arafat’s compound in the West Bank town of Ramallah. They also voiced opposition to a U.S. war on Iraq.

Mubarak and Prince Abdullah discussed the blockade around Arafat on the telephone on Sunday, September 21.

Earlier, Mubarak has asked Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer to guarantee that Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat will not be harmed, the official MENA news agency said Tuesday, September 24.

The request came in a telephone call that Ben Eliezer, who heads the left-leaning Labour party in the Israeli coalition government, made overnight to Mubarak, MENA reported.

It was the first direct contact between Israel and Egypt since Israeli tanks, troops and bulldozers moved in to besiege Arafat’s headquarters in the West Bank town of Ramallah, Thursday, the agency added.

Israel’s defense ministry previously confirmed that Ben Eliezer provided assurances to Mubarak and Jordanian Prime Minister Ali Abu Ragheb that Arafat would not be harmed.

Ben Eliezer told them that Israel’s motive for the siege was to arrest “men involved in terrorist attacks,” allegedly trapped in Arafat’s headquarters, and that it was seeking a swift end to the standoff.

But Egyptian Foreign Minister dismissed this demand as “a pretext”. Israel “is asking for people to be handed over while it doesn't even know their names,” he said.

Egypt has said it was deploying intensive diplomatic efforts, directed mainly at the United States, to secure the lifting of Arafat’s siege.

Egypt on Tuesday hailed the U.N. Security Council resolution calling for Israel to lift its five-day-old siege on Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s West Bank headquarters.

“This resolution constitutes new pressure on Israel,” Maher told reporters, praising it for including “the main points raised by the Arab side.”

The Security Council passed 14-0 a European-drafted resolution condemning the Israeli destruction and siege of Arafat’s Ramallah compound, but Israel’s main sponsor, the United States, abstained from the vote.

“We expect that the United States will contribute with the rest of the Security Council members to apply this resolution (for) a withdrawal and the lifting of the siege,” Maher said.

The U.S. refusal to veto the resolution as it has done in past situations was seen as a rebuke to Israel which has refused to end its blockade of Arafat’s compound until the Palestinian leader hands over at least 20 so called ‘wanted militants’.

Maher also fired off barbs at U.S. National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice for her comments to the Financial Times that Washington wanted to bring democracy to the Arab world.

“We in the Muslim and Arab world know our path and what we want and we hold firmly to our rights,” Maher said.

Rice said in the interview published Monday, September 23, that Washington will mobilize “sufficient force to win” a war against Iraq.