Cairo turns away Israeli request

Cairo has rejected an Israeli request to resume multilateral regional talks, stressing that any change in the Egyptian position is linked to the realization of a tangible progress in the political negotiations on all Middle East peace tracks.

Egyptian diplomatic sources told the Kuwaiti daily al-Rai al-Am published on Tuesday that Uzi Arad, the advisor of Israel's prime minister, failed during his recent talks in Cairo with Egyptian Foreign Minister Amr Moussa and President Mubarak's advisor for political affairs , Osama El-Baz, to convince Egypt of his viewpoint on resuming multilateral negotiations.

The sources added that Cairo refused Arad's request and told him that "Regional economic cooperation should not be at the expense of the peace process."