Somalia's Salad Hassan is to visit Egypt

Undeclared contacts are being made between President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and his Somali counterpart Abdul Qasem Salad Hassan to set a date for convening a bilateral summit within the few coming days in the framework of the care of the Egyptian leadership to support the process of stability and national reconciliation in Somalia.

It was scheduled that Salad Hassan would have arrived in Cairo this week after his participation at IGAD's summit conference held in Khartoum last week, but he headed for Tripoli to meet with the Libyan President Muammar al-Qaddafi in a visit which was not officially declared.

The Somali minister of information Zakaraya al-Haj mahmoud who arrived in Cairo last Friday is waiting for a date to be defined for him to be received by President Mubarak.

Al-Haj, on the other hand, met with his Egyptian counterpart Safwat al-Sharif and the two ministers discussed bilateral relations and media cooperation between the two sides.

It is decided, however, that the Somali minister will transmit to President Mubarak a message from President Salad Hassan pertaining to current developments on the Somali arena and the tense situations with Ethiopia as well as current prevailing conditions regarding the American preparations to direct a military blow against Somalia.