Mubarak: reform steps are calculated

Egypt's President Mubarak said Egypt yesterday submitted an initiative for reforming the Arab League in cooperation with Saudi Arabia and Syria, expressing the belief that remaining Arab states would not hesitate to join this initiative that aims at reforming the Arab League.

The President said in important statements yesterday during the inspection of development and modernization activities at Cairo International Airport, "we have also submitted another initiative for developing the Arab states as it is not logic that every country makes a statement in this respect, referring to the declaration by British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw of an initiative for developing the Middle East. Germans have also offered an initiative for this purpose.

Mubarak wondered, "Will we remain recipients only of initiatives."

"We have just launched an initiative for reform and development," said Mubarak, adding that Egypt has already started reform and does not fear anything.

"We rather fear for the whole region because this reform should spring from its very people as every people have their own culture, traditions, mentality and way of life.'

ÊÊÊ He stressed the importance of reform because 'we cannot remain frozen', noting that "we are reforming education, economy and democracy and calculate every step we take and its timing.

"External initiatives can blow up the whole thing, " he added.

On Women rights, Mubarak noted that women have obtained their rights since Hoda Shaarawi (in the early 20th century) and "now we have the Arab women organizations."

The Foreign Ministry launched the Arab League reform overture, said Mubarak, adding that: we are going the reform way and have cancelled the state security courts and the jail sentences in the press publication cases."

ÊÊÊ "We cannot do everything once and for all," he said.

On the cancellation of a number of military orders and launching the parties' dialogue, Mubarak said the reform process would not stop. "It might take from one year to five," he said, warning that doing it all at once will cause anarchy and reflect badly on the peoples.

Mubarak accused the media of overlooking these developments and fishing for others. "Nobody should imagine that we press the button and freedoms pour down, " he said.

ÊÊÊ If we opened the doors of freedom wide anarchy will prevail and it will be difficult to rally the peoples once again, said Mubarak.

"Someone will then come out to say he did not know that the overdose of freedom would have caused those consequences, " he said.

"We know the consequences and we are concerned about our people and our country. We have to develop ourselves in the way that suits us and suits the nature of our population which is different from the population of Europe." added Mubarak.

He said he would explain the initiative during his European tour.