President Hosni Mubarak on Tuesday urged Israel and the Palestinians to press on with direct talks and not miss out on another opportunity for peace.
“In Egypt we are exerting the utmost effort so that the direct peace talks between the Palestinians and the Israelis do not collapse over the issue of settlements, and so that the opportunity for peace is not lost, like so many lost opportunities before,” Mubarak said in a television address.
In a speech to mark the 37th anniversary of the October war with Israel, and after meeting Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, Mubarak said peace was the best way for Israel to guarantee its security.
Reaching a peace deal “is the best guarantee of security for Israel, not by occupying Arab land”, the president said.
“Peace between Egypt and Israel has proven that peace can be difficult but is not impossible,” he added, in what at times appeared to be a laborious delivery of words.
The US-backed negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians began in Washington on September 02, but have been on the brink of collapse since Israel refused to extend a 10-month moratorium on new settler homes in the West Bank that expired a week ago.
Abbas met Mubarak in Cairo on Tuesday but did not make any statements after the meeting.
US Middle East envoy George Mitchell had returned to Washington on Monday following his nearly week-long tour of the Middle East that took him to Israel, the West Bank, Qatar, Egypt and Jordan in a bid to save the fledgling talks.