CAIRO: Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit is to visit Washington next week after President Hosni Mubarak called off a meeting with his US counterpart Barack Obama, state news agency MENA said on Friday.
Mubarak has canceled a planned May 26 visit to Washington after his grandson died. A source at the presidency said the death of 12-year-old Mohamed Alaa Mubarak had saddened the president.
Egypt’s intelligence chief Omar Suleiman will accompany the foreign minister during the visit, MENA reported, without giving a specific date.
The two presidents are still scheduled to meet on June 4, when Obama will visit Egypt and give a speech expected to address the Muslim world and explain the administration’s position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Mubarak’s scheduled visit to the United States, just a week after Obama’s White House talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, had been seen as a another key moment in evolving US plans to reboot Middle East peace moves.
Obama is due to meet Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas next week at the White House.
Aboul Gheit discussed the Palestinian-Israeli conflict with British Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Bill Rammel this week.
The Egyptian FM “underlined that the international community should assume its responsibilities towards obliging the Israeli government to accept the two-state solution and adopt tangible steps in its implementation, including halting settlement activity, a foreign ministry statement read.
Rammel’s office comes with the responsibility for the Middle East, counter terrorism and counter proliferation and he was in Egypt for a two-day visit beginning Wednesday for the first time since assuming his post.
During the meeting Aboul Gheit insisted that there can be no selectivity in dealing with nuclear issues in the Middle East.
Regarding the West’s approach to handling Iran’s nuclear dossier, Aboul Gheit reaffirmed “the importance [in treating] the nuclear situation in the region without selectivity or exceptions,
Aboul Gheit “highlighted that Israel being the only state in the region outside the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty is unacceptable, the statement added. -Daily News Egypt and AFP
