Mubarak urges Israel to open final status talks
Egyptian president tells al-Quwat al-Musallaha newspaper Israel should move straight to six 'final status' issues in talks with Palestinians, including border, status of Jerusalem, refugees, settlements, security and water. 'What is required now is political will, particularly by leaders of Israel,' he says
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak urged Israel to open talks with the Palestinians on the full range of issues blocking the path to peace.
Mubarak said they should move straight to the six "final status" issues: borders, the status of Jerusalem, refugees, Israeli settlements in the West Bank, security and use of water.
"What is required now is political will, particularly by the leaders of Israel," Mubarak said in an interview with the newspaper al-Quwat al-Musallaha (The Armed Forces).
Mubarak said he was in regular contact with Israeli leaders including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Shimon Peres and Defense Minister Ehud Barak. He said talks should resume where they left off under the previous Israeli government.
"It is not reasonable or acceptable to start from scratch. I told them that the negotiations should address all six final status issues without exception," he said.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said last month that, for talks to resume, Israel must honor agreements on borders and Jerusalem that he says its previous government made in talks last year.
No clear agreements were ever published before talks were suspended. Netanyahu, a right-winger who took office in March, has made clear he does not wish to repeat any such offers that former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert may have made.
Egypt signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1979, the first Arab state to do so.
Mubarak said that agreement, which saw Israel withdraw troops and settlers from Egypt's Sinai peninsula, should be seen as a model for future pacts between Israel and the Palestinians and other Arab states.
Mubarak's comments, cited by the state news agency MENA on Saturday, are the latest in a string of calls for Israel to accept a framework for peace based on UN resolutions and a land-for-peace formula contained in the Arab peace initiative.
That initiative, launched by Saudi Arabia in 2002, offers normalization with all Arab states in return for withdrawal from territories occupied in 1967 and a just settlement for refugees. Mubarak said peace was "difficult but not impossible".
