JERUSALEM: Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman will visit Israel this week and meet Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, an official said on Sunday, despite Cairo s unease with the far-right politician.
General Suleiman will meet minister Lieberman during his visit in the coming days, Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon told army radio.
Egypt has an uneasy relationship with Lieberman, a firebrand nationalist who has said President Hosni Mubarak could go to hell if he continued to refuse to visit the Jewish state.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit said earlier this month that he would not shake Lieberman s hand.
He is a man who ought to reconsider how his brain communicates with his tongue, said Aboul Gheit, according to a transcript of an interview with Egyptian television published by the official MENA news agency.
As long as Lieberman s position stays the same I will, should I encounter him at a meeting, merely look at him, Aboul Gheit said. Of course, my hand will remain in my pocket.
Israel has gone out of its way to downplay any tension over the new foreign minister with its most important Arab ally.
There is no rupture with Egypt with the arrival of Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, Ayalon said. On the contrary, the bases for work relations have been set with the Egyptian officials, as Omar Suleiman s visit proves.
Lieberman has also suggested bombing Egypt s Aswan Dam in the event of war between the two countries, which signed a landmark peace deal in 1979.
There was no immediate confirmation on Suleiman s visit by Egypt. -AFP
