Egypt's Mubarak says Palestinian-Israel talks should resume
AFP
MANAMA- President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt on Thursday said peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians, suspended in late September over Jewish settlements in occupied territory, should resume.
"We do not want the negotiations to stop," the official Bahraini news agency BNA quoted Mubarak as saying after talks with King Hamad.
"If they stop, Israel will build on all (Palestinian) land," the Egyptian president said of Jewish settlement construction in the occupied territories.
"When the time comes to establish a Palestinian state, there will be no land. And then terrorism will spread across the world against Israel and those who support the Israeli position," Mubarak said.
"That is why the question of the peace talks requires our attention.
"We do not impose anything on the Palestinians -- we discuss with them, we advise them, we take their demands into account and we adopt them," he said.
Egypt has been discussing with the United States ways out of the current "blocked path" in peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians.
A senior Bahraini official said earlier that Mubarak and the king discussed efforts to restart stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.
Mubarak briefed the king on "the latest contacts between the Palestinian Authority and the United States," the official told AFP, adding that "Israeli obstacles to a resumption of the negotiations are unacceptable."
The Palestinians insist that for direct peace talks, which started on September 2 only to stumble to a halt three weeks later, to resume Israel must cease all Jewish settlement activity in occupied territory.
The September negotiations ended at the same time as a 10-month moratorium on settlement building in the West Bank.
Israel is currently mulling plans for a fresh 90-day ban on West Bank settlement building in return for a generous US package of political and military benefits.
The Egyptian president was in Bahrain on the final stage of a Gulf tour that also took him to the United Arab Emirates and Qatar.
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"When the time comes to establish a Palestinian state, there will be no land. And then terrorism will spread across the world against Israel and those who support the Israeli position," Mubarak said.
"That is why the question of the peace talks requires our attention.
"We do not impose anything on the Palestinians -- we discuss with them, we advise them, we take their demands into account and we adopt them," he said.
Egypt has been discussing with the United States ways out of the current "blocked path" in peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians.
A senior Bahraini official said earlier that Mubarak and the king discussed efforts to restart stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.
Mubarak briefed the king on "the latest contacts between the Palestinian Authority and the United States," the official told AFP, adding that "Israeli obstacles to a resumption of the negotiations are unacceptable."
The Palestinians insist that for direct peace talks, which started on September 2 only to stumble to a halt three weeks later, to resume Israel must cease all Jewish settlement activity in occupied territory.
The September negotiations ended at the same time as a 10-month moratorium on settlement building in the West Bank.
Israel is currently mulling plans for a fresh 90-day ban on West Bank settlement building in return for a generous US package of political and military benefits.
The Egyptian president was in Bahrain on the final stage of a Gulf tour that also took him to the United Arab Emirates and Qatar.
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