March 4, 2002

Mubarak in an interview with the Chicago Tribune : Egypt to host Middle East peace talks 

    In an interview with the Chicago Tribune, Mubarak said he would present his proposal to President Bush at a White House meeting Tuesday. He said he also would press for greater U.S. involvement in the peace process.

    Mubarak's bid for center stage in the Middle East peace effort seeks to build on the momentum of a Saudi peace initiative that the Egyptian leader said was gaining wide support among Arab governments.

    Breaking sharply with the Bush administration view that Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat must curtail the violence before negotiations can resume, Mubarak said only direct dialogue between Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Arafat would calm tense populations on both sides.

    "The only way is that the two parties could come and sit together. No other way out. This is a vicious circle now. We need to make a breakthrough. This vicious circle must stop," Mubarak said. "We are ready for any kind of call for peace. We will sit in Egypt. We will sit in New York--anywhere--just to release the tension."

    A spokesman for President Bush's National Security Council said Sunday that the administration would leave the planning of any negotiations up to Israel and the Palestinians.

    "We can assist. We can help. But ultimately it is up to the two leaders," security council spokesman Sean Mccormick said. "What you have to have first is an end to the violence. It's a practical fact that it is difficult to talk about peace while this kind of violence is going on."

    Bush's insistence that Palestinian violence be curtailed first, Mubarak said, amounts to "asking for the impossible."

    Last month, Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah floated a peace initiative that offered Israelis full diplomatic recognition from the Arab states in return for complete Israeli withdrawal from occupied Palestinian areas. The proposal, while lacking in specifics, has nevertheless interested some Arabs and Israelis whose despair is growing amid escalating violence.

    Arab League support seen

    In an interview at Blair House, Washington's official guest residence for visiting heads of state, Mubarak said that based on his consultations with Arab leaders, the Saudi initiative would win approval at an Arab League summit meeting later this month.

    Such a move would raise the pressure on Israel, presenting Sharon's government with an Arab front on a proposal that asks Israel to make politically painful territorial concessions to the Palestinians.

    But Mubarak made clear that the Saudi proposal was not itself a solution to the Middle East crisis. That could come through direct dialogue between Arafat and Sharon, he said.

    "It is not a peace plan. It is an idea," Mubarak said.

    Clearly seeking to reassert Egypt's leading role as a peace broker in the region, Mubarak also said he would urge Bush to step up his involvement in a Middle East peace process obscured in recent weeks by intensifying violence.

    Mubarak's high-level talks in Washington this week take place in an atmosphere of both hope and desperation. While the Saudi peace initiative is gaining expressions of interest from Israel and mixed support in the Arab world, Israeli-Palestinian violence threatens to spin out of control, reaching levels not seen in the region in decades.

    Surveying the world scene before an intensive round of meetings with top officials, Mubarak also said :

    - The Bush administration has let the Middle East peace process slip because of its preoccupation with the war on terrorism.

    - Criticized Sharon for failing to establish regular contact with Egypt in the search for an end to Israeli-Palestinian violence.

    - Advised that no direct meeting between Arafat and Bush would be constructive until Arafat had agreed to meet with Sharon and resume direct negotiations.

    - Cautioned against any unilateral U.S. military aggression against Iraq.

    Frustration in the Middle East is building, Mubarak said, in part because of statements coming from the U.S. government and news media that Mubarak characterized as "supporting the Israelis and condemning the Palestinians." Though he stopped short of directly criticizing Bush for his approach to Middle East violence, Mubarak said he will urge the President to take a more active role.

    "I came here on the request of the President. I will tell him sincerely what I see and tell him what could be done to end the violence," Mubarak said. "The main thing is to make a window of hope for the people that there is peace coming."

    Mubarak said he has invited Sharon and Arafat to come to the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheik at the southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula. The site was the scene of high-level talks between Arafat and then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak in 2000, co-hosted by Mubarak and President Bill Clinton.

    This time, however, the aim would not be to reach a permanent peace settlement, Mubarak said, but rather to begin a process that would start with small steps. "We cannot solve the problem in a meeting," he said.

    Mubarak added that religious issues remain among the most divisive, particularly concerning Jewish and Muslim holy sites in the ancient Old City of Jerusalem.

    Mubarak tied the Arab-Israeli conflict to the broader war on terrorism, saying that economic hardship in the Palestinian territories has become a breeding ground for extremism.

    "Why are the people making suicide bombs?" he asked. "They are desperate people. They cannot find money to raise their families."

    Role in war on terror

    Regarding concerns in the U.S. that Egypt has produced radical terrorists, including Mohamed Atta, leader of the suicide hijackers who flew airliners into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Mubarak said his country was providing the U.S. with extensive help in the war on terror. Most of that help, he said, was too sensitive to describe, involving the sharing of law-enforcement and intelligence information.

    Asked about recent polling that shows strong anti-American sentiment among Muslims, he suggested the feelings stem from growing frustration over U.S. statements that appear to tilt toward Israel. But he insisted Egyptians overwhelmingly condemned the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

    As to growing speculation that the U.S. is prepared to take military action to oust Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein from power, Mubarak spoke obliquely. He noted that after the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, the previous Bush administration worked closely with other Arab states in winning broad support for military action