Mubarak-Shroeder summit falls within sustained consultations, Egyptian diplomat

Egypt's Ambassador to Germany Mohamed El Orabi said summit talks Sunday between President Hosni Mubarak and German chancellor, Gerhard Schroeder, fall within sustained consultations between the two countries at the various levels to discuss major regional and international issues.

He said the inauguration of the German University in Cairo during Chancellor Schroeder's visit will be another landmark event to be added to another genius step taken in the past, namely the Mubarak-Kohl initiative on giving a boost to polytechnic education.

He said that the German University represented a kind of scientific and technical support for Egypt. It is also some sort of an economic project to which Egyptian businessmen contributed, he added.

The German University is like an Egyptian-German cultural partnership within the comprehensive partnership between the two countries, he said.

The Egyptian ambassador said that Germans regarded Egypt's peaceful efforts as the only way to stop violence and bring the Israelis and Palestinians back to the negotiation table.

In reply to a question on the German stance as regards Iraq's future, he said that the German role was confined to humanitarian aid, reconstruction efforts and training of Iraqi policemen.

He said that Germany rejected sending German troops to Iraq as Berlin had been against the Iraq war from the very beginning.

The German forces' experience in Afghanistan had been very painful, he added.