|
Mubarak warns against isolating Gaza
(AP)
Updated: 2005-08-21 11:10
JERUSALEM - Prime Minster Ariel Sharon is the only Israeli leader who can
make peace, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said in an interview with an
Israeli newspaper.
The Egyptian leader cautioned that it would be a "disastrous mistake" for
Israel to isolate the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip once it completes its Gaza
pullout
"If you erect a fence and carry out a partition, it will be a disastrous
mistake. You have to give the residents of Gaza a feeling of freedom so they
won't feel like they are in a prison. If you close them up, there will be
frustration, which leads to violence," he told the Yediot Ahronot correspondent
in Cairo.
Mubarak also said he is considering visiting Israel to attend a memorial for
Yitzhak Rabin, the prime minister assassinated 10 years ago by a Jewish
extremist over the Oslo peace accords that Rabin signed with the late
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.
"I hope to be able to come, because of my esteem and regard for Rabin," he
said.
Mubarak's only previous visit to Israel during his 24-year presidency was to
attend Rabin's funeral.
If Rabin had lived, Mubarak said, it would have been easier to conclude a
full peace agreement with the Palestinians. "When Rabin went, the problems
started. Israelis came in and extended the settlements, and things got
complicated. The only one left is Sharon."
The Egyptian leader said Sharon had the necessary grasp of security issues,
the power and the decisiveness to make peace, and praised him as a man of his
word.
Mubarak spoke as Israel was dismantling Jewish settlements and ending its
occupation of the Gaza Strip which it captured from Egypt in the 1967 war.
Mubarak said Israel had to continue negotiations over the West Bank and its
final borders, and allow the Palestinians to build a port and revive their
international trade.
|
 | | | Japanese PM launches general election campaign | | |  | | | Katrina slams US Gulf Coast, oil rigs adrift | | |  | | | Japan's 6 parties square off in TV debate | | |
|
| |
 |
|
|
|
|
Today's
Top News |
|
|
|
Top World
News |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
