Prospective change in US Middle East policy after Mubarak-Bush summit
Egypt-Regional, Politics, 4/4/2001

Egyptian Foreign Minister Amr Moussa hoped for a change in the new American Administration's Middle East policy now that the Egyptian and American Presidents did hold their first summit in Washington Monday.

Moussa, who accompanies President Hosni Mubarak on his four-day working visit to Washington, said he hoped that the Middle East policy of the new American Administration of President George.W Bush would change now that Mubarak has briefed Bush on the gravity of the situation in the region in light of Israelis military escalation.

Speaking to Sawt EL Arab Radio Tuesday over the telephone from Washington, he said Egypt urges Washington to stop its bias towards Israel and to follow a balanced policy that would save the peace process from collapse.

Moussa told Sawt AL Arab from Washington: Our task and the task of Arab diplomacies is to treat this bias, we are determined to work, continuously and comprehensively to treat this imbalanced situation." "Several issues can be treated by a fair dialogue and by adopting stances that would limit the dangers of this bias," he said.

The US, being the world's first and only superpower, must be persuaded to follow a policy that would protect the peace process and save it from collapse, "and this is what we are doing," he added.

"President Mubarak expounded to Bush the Arab viewpoint, which is totally different from what the American Administration had heard from Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon," he said.

Regarding Iraq, Moussa told the Radio that President Mubarak did examine this issue with President Bush.

Mubarak told him that Egypt rejects the "smart sanctions" policy and calls for an urgent solution to the Iraqi problem that will also affirm the sovereignty of Kuwait, guarantee its rights and seriously move to solve this problem, he said.

The US has its own stance and the Arab states have a different one, but what is important is that the dialogue has started by raising the Arab stance and that there are specific requirements concerning the sanctions and their harmful effects on the Iraqi people and its stability, he added.

Moussa said the US had a desire in developing its relationship with Sudan and that it never encouraged would be on how to solve the problem within the framework of the unity of Sudan, he added.

Libya has done everything that the UN Security Council resolution required of it is, it is not asked to do any more and the ongoing American-Libyan dialogue focuses on the issue of reparations, Moussa told "Sawt Al-Arab''.

Asked on the US allowing Europe to play a role in the Middle East, he said the European position had not fully crystallized.

Should there be a European role, nobody can stop it, but Europe speaks for 15 countries and each one of them has its own policy, they are not all in agreement on one policy, he added.

On Egyptian-American relations, he said prospects for enhancing the relationship in the various spheres, especially the economic one, is numerous.

"But at the same time, the establishment of an American -Egyptian free trade zone will not be reached during President Mubarak current visit," he said.

The matter requires more time, he added.

Previous Stories:
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  Moussa: Arabs, shoulder a collective responsibility to ensure the success of Amman summit   (3/24/2001)

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