Mubarak meets with students about Iraq, Sudan, and local issues

A meeting of Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak with the students of Egyptian universities started Tuesday at Al-Shatbi area in the Mediterranean resort of Alexandria.

ÊÊÊ Mubarak held an open dialogue with the students on various issues of national action and challenges facing the Middle East peace process.

Egypt's relationship with the United States is strategic and too firmly-established to suffer any deterioration, the president said when asked about the current Cairo-Washington tension as the result of linking additional American economic aid to Egypt to an internal affair of Egypt.

ÊÊÊ He said matters had to be made clear, in this case it was additional economic aid and not the regular annual aid.

ÊÊÊ The Americans said that the additional aid would be suspended as long as there was a problem in Egypt involving an American citizen, Mubarak said, referring to the sentencing of Saadeddin Ibrahim, head of the Ibn Khaldoun research centre and dual nationality holder, to a seven-year prison term for illegally accepting foreign funds and intentionally tarnishing Egypt's image abroad.

ÊÊÊ "Problems do happen, and our viewpoints on them could differ, but this does not harm our relationship. We have good relations with the U.S. but there are some parties in the U.S. who want to harm the American-Egyptian relationship," the president said.

ÊÊÊ The relationship with the U.S. is very good, some problems do happen and this is a very normal matter, "but we cannot say the relationship has deteriorated, the relationship did not deteriorate and contacts are ongoing," he affirmed.

ÊÊÊ The president reaffirmed Egypt's opposition to the division of Sudan and said Egyptian-Sudanese relations were very good and proceeding on the right track.

ÊÊÊ The division of Sudan will not be a threat to Nile water-sharing as some imagine, but the danger is that its separation into north and south could spread havoc to the African continet, he added.

ÊÊÊ Egypt does not impose on the Sudanese any decisions, it supports any decision that protects Sudan's territorial integrity and does not lead to the separation of the south from the north, he said.

ÊÊÊ The Machakos protocol signed between the Khartoum government and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) was an initial agreement and not a final one, the president said.

ÊÊÊ Turning to the issue of Iraq and whether a unified Arab position towards a possible attack on the country existed, the president said Baghdad had to comply with the relevant United Nations Security resolutions and it must let the international weapons inspectors back into the country.

ÊÊÊ "We have spoken with Iraq several times, and a representative from the Arab League went to Baghdad. He told me that Iraq had accepted the return of the international inspectors, but nothing has happened so far and this was a long time ago," he added.

ÊÊÊ The president said he told the American Administration that Iraq must not be attacked and its people must not be killed.

ÊÊÊ He cautioned that if Washington attacked and killed Iraqis only to get to one person or two, at a time Palestinians were being killed every day, chaos could spread in the region.

ÊÊÊ No leader would be able to quell the popular outrage if this happened, he said.

ÊÊÊ "What would we be able to tell the Egyptian or Arab street, what would we tell them?" he wanted to know.

ÊÊÊ On the issue of a unified Arab position, the president said "I do not think that there is an Arab country that would want to see Iraq attacked. "

ÊÊÊ Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and all countries. "Saudi Arabia has repeatedly said it will not accept an attack on Iraq and that it will not allow the use of its bases to attack Iraq, he added.

ÊÊÊ He expressed hope the issue of Iraq would be solved in one way or another. The president also touched on various domestic affairs in his gathering with the university students.