Jul  10, 2001

Mubarak: Egypt rejects any foreign
intervention

    At a world press conference following the ceremony which was held on the occasion of the graduation of batch no. 29 from the Air Defence Academy,

    President Mubarak added there are some elements working against Egypt's interests abroad with the aim of fomenting sedition among Moslems and Copts.

    He noted those persons were in communication with some quarters which were interested in disuniting the people of our country.

    The President stressed that Egyptian citizens, whether Moslems, Christians or Jews, are given full care by the state, indicating that the Egyptian armed forces have achieved a high level of training and are prepared to defend the homeland and not to launch attacks against any other country.

    The President made an assessment of the development of the Middle East peace process, warning against maintaining Israeli policy for killing Palestinian activists.

    The President said he couldn't imagine that they make statements to this effect, adding this would increase violence in the region.

    The President said experiments all over the world have not demonstrated that war has not solved any case adding the use of military force has never settled an issue.

    Referring to ideas promoted by Israel for getting rid of Palestinian Leader Yasser Arafat and describing him as a terrorist, the President said this is a short-sighted thinking, adding that should Arafat be diposed off the scene, the Israelis would witness another 30 or 40 Arafats and a similar number of PLOs and the situation would become more complicated.

    The President wondered how couldn't Israel agree on the deployment of international observers, indicating that those observers would have no bearing on Israel, adding Hebron area has witnessed no troubles due to the presence of international observers.

    President Mubarak said that disregard to international resolutions would not please Arab and Islamic and even European peoples.

    He called for maintaining US and European roles for pushing forward the peace process.

    He said those countries would have their interests hurt if bigger efforts were not exerted.

    The President said threats made here or there would not lead to solving the problem but rather would generate some sort of violence and revenge.

    In order to reach a solution, the President said negotiations should be resumed and an appraisal of the situation should be made, asserting that Egypt wants peace, stability and development and encourages cooperation among all countries of the region.

    The President said waiting until violence stops completely before holding any negotiations would mean that we would not reach a solution to the issue and this would hurt interests of all parties and would put the region on the verge of abyss.

    Answering a question on the case of Dr. Saad Eddin Ibrahim, President Mubarak said this is a legal affair and has no political nature. The President said we couldn't interfere in this case as freedom of expression is guaranteed for all in our country.