Maher makes telephone calls with Powell, Silvan

The Egyptian foreign minister Ahmad Maher has discussed in a telephone call he received yesterday from his American counterpart Colin Powell the current developments in the occupied Palestinian territories and results of the meeting which was held on Tuesday between the Palestinian authority prime minister Mahmoud Abbas and the Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon.

During the telephone call Maher called on the US to work seriously to implement the roadmap simultaneously on the Palestinian and Israeli sides and to move towards achieving a peaceful settlement for the Middle East question, according to international legitimacy resolutions provided for Israel's complete withdrawal from all occupied Arab lands until June 4, 1967 border lines.

Maher also received a telephone call from the Israeli foreign minister Shalom Silvan.

News reports in Cairo said that Silvan told Maher that the Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon and the Palestinian prime minister Mahmoud Abbas agreed during their meeting on Tuesday to form joint Ministerial committees, with the participation of the USA in many of them with the aim to discuss several issues, mainly releasing the Palestinian prisoners in the Israeli jails and eliminating unlicensed Israeli settlements.