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Mubarak asks Arafat & Barak to meet in Egypt to end turmoil |
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October 4, 2000
CAIRO (AP) - President Hosni Mubarak said Tuesday that Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak have agreed to come to Egypt to discuss ways of ending the Israeli-Palestinian violence. Mubarak did not say when the meeting will take place. But David Baker, spokesman for Barak's office, said in Jerusalem the Israeli leader will leave for Egypt on Thursday to attend the summit. Mubarak said the gathering will be held at the Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh, where Arafat and Barak met last year and signed an interim peace deal. "The aim of such a summit is to lay the foundations for a comprehensive settlement for all the outstanding questions," Mubarak told reporters during a tour of a major agricultural project in southern Egypt. "In this case I will only attend the beginning of the meeting and then leave them alone to hammer out details," he said. Barak and Arafat were to meet separately in Paris on Wednesday with U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright in a U.S. effort to revive peace talks. Albright has said she also hoped for a trilateral meeting. The Israeli-Palestinian clashes were sparked by a visit last week by Ariel Sharon, the leader of the hard-line opposition Likud party, to a Jerusalem site holy to Muslims and Jews. At least 50 people - most of them Palestinian - have been killed in the violence. Egypt, the first Arab country to sign a peace agreement with Israel, has been a key player in Mideast peacemaking. |