CAIRO, 10 February 2004 — The Egyptian and Yemeni presidents stressed their determination to work to end the Israeli-Palestinian and Iraqi conflicts in talks here yesterday, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher said.
Yemen’s Ali Abdullah Saleh arrived in Cairo earlier yesterday for meetings with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, while several Yemeni ministers also had talks with members of the Egyptian government.
As well as regional issues, the two leaders were also expected to look at ways of boosting cooperation between their countries, particularly in the area of security, an Egyptian official said.
They “are determined to work together to settle the Palestinian problem and help the Iraqi people to manage their affairs themselves as soon as possible,” Maher told journalists.
They had reviewed “the general Arab situation”, underlined their “joint determination to work together to encourage Arab action” and “agreed to strengthen cooperation between their two countries in all fields, he said.
They had also discussed “ideas put forward by Egypt and Yemen aimed at modernizing the Arab League,” Egyptian Information Minister Safwat Al-Sherif added.
Egyptian Interior Minister Habib Al-Adly and his Yemeni counterpart Rashad Al-Alimi on Sunday discussed ways of working closer together in the face of international terrorism, Egypt’s government newspaper Al-Ahram reported yesterday. The ministers looked at improving police liaison, especially for security and dealing with crime.
Also Sunday, Yemeni Foreign Minister Abu Bakr Al-Kurbi met Arab League Secretary- General Amr Moussa, for talks ahead of an Arab ministerial meeting due early in March, the paper said.
An Arab summit is due to be held late in March in Tunisia, preceded by ministerial meetings earlier the same month, but Maher said it could be held at Arab League headquarters in Cairo.
