Netanyahu to discuss Shalit, Mideast peace with Mubarak
PM to ask Mubarak to pressure PA to renew negotiations and take part in three-way summit with U.S.
By Barak Ravid Tags: Benjamin Netanyahu Egypt Hosni Mubarak Israel newsPrime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is to arrive this afternoon in Cairo to meet with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Netanyahu is to ask Mubarak to put pressure on Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas to renew negotiations with Israel and to take part in a three-way summit with U.S. President Barack Obama during the upcoming United Nations General Assembly. Netanyahu and Mubarak are also expected to discuss the status of talks on the release of kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit.
Netanyahu and Mubarak are to meet privately and then be joined by others. They will then dine together when Mubarak breaks the day's Ramadan fast.
Ties between Netanyahu and the Egyptian president have grown closer over the past six months; the two leaders speak by phone on a weekly basis.
This is Netanyahu's second visit to Egypt since taking office, but in an unusual move, this time the meeting is in Cairo rather than Sharm el-Sheikh.
The media will not be accompanying Netanyahu due to the Egyptian desire to maintain a low profile for the meeting.
The prime minister is expected to update Mubarak on his conversations with members of the American administration on the issue of construction in the settlements. He will also seek Mubarak's support for American efforts toward normalization between Israel and Arab states.
Netanyahu and Mubarak are also expected to discuss the Iranian nuclear threat in light of the intent of Western countries to open a dialogue with Iran even before the U.N. General Assembly meets on September 23.
Meanwhile, the American envoy for the Middle East, George Mitchell, arrived in Israel last night. Members of Mitchell's team, including settlement expert Mara Rudman and diplomat David Hale, have been conducting talks with their counterparts in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv in preparation for Mitchell's visit.
Mitchell is to meet this morning with President Shimon Peres and this evening with Defense Minister Ehud Barak. He is to meet tomorrow with Netanyahu, and is also expected to meet with Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman.
Sources in the American administration and in the prime minister's bureau in Jerusalem have both said they hope the visit will finalize the formula for the freezing of construction in the settlements.
Mitchell is still insisting on freezing construction for a year, while Netanyahu is offering six months.
Source in Jerusalem said they believe the parties will compromise on a nine-month freeze.
Meanwhile, Deputy Foreign Minister Daniel Ayalon left for Washington Saturday to prepare for the first strategic dialogue meeting between Israel and the United States in the Netanyahu-Obama era.
In contrast to previous years, the dialogue this time is to take place on the senior level, between the foreign minister and the U.S. secretary of state. The date for the meeting has not been set.
Ayalon is to meet with Jim Steinberg, deputy U.S. secretary of state, with Obama adviser Dennis Ross and with other senior State Department officials.
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Egypt President Hosni Mubarak shaking hands with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. |
| Photo by: (Reuters) |
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It's hard keeping all the stories straight. One story says that the fix is in for talks. This says everything is up in the air. Can't the PM's Office at least coordinate their leaks to the press? I thought the Bush admin made incompetence an art form. But Netanyahu makes them look competent in telling stories to the press.
If the Arabs are sincere they will release Shalit immediately and unconditionally, in accordance with the international law against kidnapping. If they are not sincere there is no point negotiating with them.
So is Egypt Get real, please
Bring Shalit first and then we talk
One can draw a line down a piece of paper. On one half on can list all of the successful wars of the Bush Junta as well as all of it's diplomatic successes. That side will be blank. On the other, list the failures. That side will be full. Now, Bibi 'Dubbya Bush' Netanyahu is proceeding with the same play book, the same ideology, and the same delusions as the Bush Junta. How do you think the page will be written? Will the deranged behavior and beliefs that produced total failure when backed by the might of the USA succeed when pursued by a minor power? Netanyahu and the lunatics who follow him think so. Did those policies succeed for Japan in the 1930s and 40s? Did the blossom into world domination for Hitler? No, those who think that they can use military force to push their agenda down the throat of the world usually loose. Ask Napoleon.
And will Netanyahu have more success when he went to Putin and demanded that Russia kiss his butt and let him attack Iran?
any talk between Israeli and Egyptian leaders is a kind of double talk. Gaza rightfully should be part of Egypt, but the Egyptians want no part of the subversive Palestinian political tradition which would ally itself with the moslem brotherhood and threaten mubarak. israel wanted gaza and got it, and now the prospect of an independant hamas enclave is mind boggling and against the real interest of the region. Egypt's duplicity in letting the smuggling tunnels operate while closing the border shows how things are done in the middle east. and israels blocade has failed and the price of freeing Gilad Shalit, will be future victims of terror cause by the release of hundreds of terrorists. same old tragic story. when will they ever learn.