Mubarak urges P.L.O. to talk peace

Press, 23 September 1988, Page 8

Mubarak urges P.L.O. to talk peace

NZPA-Reuter Cairo The Egyptian President, Hosni Mubarak, has urged the P.L.O.’s chairman, Yasser Arafat, to co-oper-ate with Jordan in efforts to negotiate a peace settlement with Israel. Mr Arafat told reporters after a one-hour private meeting with Mr Mubarak on Wednesday, “I found the President was very keen about Arab co-operation and Pales-tinian-Jordanian relations.” The session was their first since Jordan broke legal and administrative links with the Israeli-oc-cupied West Bank in July. The move left the .Palestine Liberation Organisation to determine policy on how to regain the area captured in the 1967 Arab-Israel war. Mr Mubarak will fly to

Belgrade today at the start of a week-long European tour, including stops in London, Paris and Bonn, which may include talks on P.L.O. policy. The main focus of the trip is to win backing for Egypt in negotiations with the International Monetary Fund (1.M.F.). The Egyptian daily, “alAhram,” reported yesterday that Mr Mubarak would meet King Hussein of Jordan in London on Sunday. The King is there on a private visit. Mr Arafat said the P.L.O. had not taken a final position on the establishment of a provisional Palestinian Government — an idea widely promulgated since Jordan’s break with the West Bank. Mr Arafat and Mr Mubarak discussed various options considered by the Palestinians, the P.L.O.

chairman said. He did not elaborate. The Egyptian Foreign Minister, Esmat AbdelMaguid, who will discuss the peace process with President Reagan and the Israeli Foreign Minister, Shimon Peres, in New York on Monday, met Mr Arafat separately. “Our position in Egypt is prompt approval and co-operation with the provisional government or anything else acceptable to the P.L.0.,” Abdel-Ma-guid told the Egyptian weekly “al-Mussawar,” published on Wednesday. “But the political programme is the prime force that will set the cause in motion and so it must be defined clearly.” Mr Arafat said he was optimistic “the Palestinian flag will soon rise over Jerusalem, God willing.”