Mubarak takes peace plan to Western capitals

Press, 26 January 1988, Page 6

Mubarak takes peace plan to Western capitals

NZPA-Reuter Bonn The Egyptian President, Hosni Mubarak, one of the West’s key allies in the Arab world, will arrive in Bonn today at the start of a 12-day tour of Western capitals with a new plan to reconcile Israelis and Palestinians.

Mr Mubarak will use his five-hour stay to sound out Chancellor Helmut Kohl and President Richard von Weizsaecker on his proposals to stop bloodshed between Palestinians and Israeli troops in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. West Germany, at pains to maintain good ties with Israel following the Nazi holocaust, has confined its concern over Israel’s crackdown on the territories to critical statements by the European Community, of which it is

currently president. Israeli security forces have shot dead at least 39 Palestinians in the last six weeks.

The West German Foreign Minister, HansDietrich Genscher, discussed the fighting with Israeli leaders during a one-day visit to Jerusalem yesterday. He also held talks in Syria earlier this month and in Egypt in December.

Mr Mubarak’s five-point regional peace plan calls for a six-month morato-

rium on violence in the occupied territories and an end to further Jewish settlement there. It demands that Israel move towards • a peace conference.

The idea of a conference has split the Israeli coalition Government, with hardliners refusing to confer with their Arab foes on the lands Israel seized from Jordan and Egypt in the 1967 Middle East War.

In the last two months Egypt has been welcomed

back into much of the Arab fold after being shunned since it signed the United States-inspired Camp David peace treaty in 1979 establishing diplomatic relations with Israel. Mr Mubarak, aged 59, is likely as well to use his restored prestige in the Middle East and his continued respect in the West to seek ways of ending the seven-year war between Iran and Iraq. As with most visitors to West Germany, economic

co-operation will also be discussed. West Germany is Egypt’s third largest aid donor, after the United States and France. Egypt has foreign debts of SUS4O million ($60.4 million). Mr Mubarak, accompanied by the Foreign Minister, Abdel Meguid, will fly to London later today and Washington tomorrow. The rest of his trip has not been announced but is expected, to include brief stays in Paris, Rabat and Rome.