Egyptian-French summit agree on bilateral cooperation
Egypt-France, Politics, 4/20/2006

A private Egyptian-French summit meeting took place yesterday between President Hosni Mubarak and President Jacques Chirac. The two leaders were later joined by their delegations.

Talks tackled the latest developments in the Middle East peace process and ways of improving Palestinian living conditions.

The talks also touched upon the latest developments on the Lebanese-Syrian scene, the implementation of relevant United Nations (UN) resolutions, the Iranian nuclear file, the situation in Iraq, along with the situation in the Western Sudanese region of Darfur.

The two leaders also took up means of boosting bilateral ties. Cabinet ministers from both sides also held.

The talks reflected the two countries' keenness on shoring up bilateral ties invarious fields, especially with regard to trade exchange and cooperation in the fields of investment, industry, technology, oil and natural gas.

Spokesman for the French presidency Jerome Bonnafant hailed personal links between presidents Mubarak and Chirac, indicating that Egypt is a key state in the region.

He said France was convinced that Egypt could play a crucial role in persuading Hamas movement to amend its stance towards Israel as a first step towards reactivating the peace process.

Egypt has welcomed Chirac's initiative to create a new mechanism to boost Euro-Mediterranean dialogue within the context of the Barcelona Process.

Presidential Spokesman Suleiman Awwad said Egypt supports Euro- Mediterranean dialogue. He said Egypt welcomes this and any other initiative seeking to promote Mediterranean dialogue.

He said the crisis of the pictures defaming Islam in Europe has underlined the need for having a dialogue based on mutual respect with our European partners.

He said the creation of a French-Egyptian presidential business council comes within the context of developing relations between Egypt and France indicating that the volume of trade exchange with France is set at 1.6 billion euros.

He said Egyptian and French stances underlined the need for reaching a political settlement to the Darfur crisis adding that the main difference in viewpoints between Egypt and France lies in the fact that Egypt concurred with the Khartoum stance that there was no need for deploying foreign troops under the United Nations umbrella in Darfur before reaching a peace agreement between the Sudanese government and the rebel movement in Darfur.

Previous Stories:
  Chirac: Egypt plays leading role in ME stability   (4/19/2006)
  Chirac asked to speak about Egyptian opposition leader Ayman Nour   (4/19/2006)
  Mubarak - Chirac phone talks   (3/9/2006)
  Egypt, France sign agreement on oil and gas exploration in Mediterranean sea   (9/16/2005)
  Investment minister discusses boosting economic relation with France   (7/22/2005)
  Egyptian-French trade exchange up to 1.3 billion euros   (6/13/2005)

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