CAIRO: Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak charged in an interview published yesterday that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s policies were an obstacle to peace negotiations. “Sharon is building long term plans on a temporary idea,” he told state-owned Roz Al Yusef. “(He) conditions the implementation of the roadmap on what he calls the dismantlement of terrorist infrastructure in the Palestinian territories whilst intensifying settlement activity in the West Bank and particularly around Jerusalem,” Mubarak said. “This attitude hampers peace negotiations and gradually reduce the chances of establishing a viable Palestinian state.” Relations between Egypt and Israel, which signed a peace treaty in 1979, have warmed recently after becoming strained over the outbreak of the Palestinian uprising five years ago, and Mubarak had at times been uncharacteristically complimentary of Sharon for an Arab leader. Israel completed its historic pullout from the Gaza Strip earlier this month and also evacuated four Jewish settlements in the West Bank as part of its unilateral disengagement plan. But the Israeli military continues to target militants in Gaza and has announced plans to develop several urban settlements in the occupied West Bank. Palestinians and Arab countries have expressed their fear that Israel had given up the Gaza Strip only to consolidate its grip on the West Bank and definitively rule out handing back east Jerusalem. Mubarak said he would “step up contacts with the United States and the other members of the quartet (United Nations, European Union and Russia) for a resumption of political negotiations to take place as soon as possible in order to take advantage of the momentum born of Israel’s Gaza pullout.” – AFP
Last update on: 28-9-2005