Mubarak for convening an Arab summit

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has said that convening a pan Arab summit is a must at the present time. In statements he made to editors in chief of Egyptian dailies which were published on Monday the Egyptian president added that contacts on high level will start to achieve this objective.

He added that he had discussed in detail the issue of a pan-Arab summit with King Hassan II of Morocco. President Mubarak ruled out a pan-Arab summit to be used as an alternative for the summit of the Arab states bordering Israel. He stressed that coordination between these states is inevitable and cannot be disregarded.

"The venue of the Arab summit is open for any Arab country to host it, Mubarak said, adding, "The important thing is that we meet on an Arab land."

On progress on the different tracks of the peace process with Israel, Mubarak said, "We work for completing the peacemaking on all tracks and liberating all Arab territories and our priorities clearly are the Syrian, Lebanese and Palestinian tracks respectively." He added that he will meet today with Palestinian President Yasser Arafat.

He welcomed any progress in the Middle East peace process through the Madrid principles, but called for caution regarding Israeli Prime Minister-elect Ehud Barak's policies toward peace, saying, "We still have to wait and see, as the new Israeli government has not yet been formed and we have to wait its formation."

He also said that a just and comprehensive peace for the region reqires the removal of nuclear weapons, including by Israel.

Mubarak added that Israel must withdraw from all Arab lands.