Egypt refuses to receive Peres

The London - based al-Zaman ( the Times) daily said on Saturday that Egypt has refused a request from the Israeli foreign minister Shimon Peres to visit Cairo after his visit to Washington because of the contradiction in his statements and for misleading the Egyptian leadership earlier on that there is a final agreement with the Palestinian, which came to be at the ultimate end that such an agreement was not signed and that during that time Israel established an isolation security belt along the border around Gaza.

The paper quoted diplomatic sources as saying that there is an Egyptian attitude to freeze relations and contacts with Israel because of the attempt made by Israel to create problems with Egypt and the recent statements made by the Israeli foreign minister Peres.

The sources indicated that the Egyptian foreign minister Amr Moussa said in statements that the contradiction in the statements between the Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon and the Foreign minister Shimon Peres, make the Israeli policy lose its credibility. Moussa called for withstanding this very Israeli contradiction by a united Arab position.

Moussa stressed that it is not fair to let people on daily basis be subjected to aggressions without ensuring protection for them, noting that this matter will be discussed with the foreign ministers of Canada and Holland during their forthcoming visit to Cairo.

However, The Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and his foreign minister Moussa had strongly criticized Peres and accused him of being a liar and of no credibility because he backtracked assertions and guarantees he had given to Egypt during his recent visit over halting the violations against the Palestinians.

The paper added that the Egyptian deputy foreign minister Muhammad Orabi had during the two past days summoned the Israeli ambassador in Cairo and gave him a message of protest because of Peres's statements against Egypt. The Egyptian deputy foreign minister also refused to receive an Israeli message of protest against the Egyptian media and press campaign against Israel. Egypt has called for an official apology for the recent statements made by the Israeli rabbi Ovadia Yousseve and stressed the need of trying him.