Mubarak to brief al-Assad on his talks with Barak

The London-based al-Sharq al-Awsat daily said, quoting well-informed sources in Cairo, that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak will hand over to Syrian President Hafez al-Assad upon arriving in Cairo in the middle of this week a comprehensive report on the results of his talks with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak.

In its Sunday issue the paper said the report includes "extremely important" hints, including an Israeli message to Syria in order to resume the negotiations which have been frozen between the two countries for several years.

The paper added that Mubarak conveyed to Barak Syria's main requests, mainly rejecting any attempt to separate the Syrian and Lebanese tracks and rejecting returning to talks on Israel's withdrawal from parts of the Golan instead of total withdrawal.