MOSCOW, 28 May 2004 — Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak arrived yesterday in Moscow for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the Arab-Israeli conflict and a US initiative to push for democratic reforms in the Middle East. He landed in Russia following a trip to Romania and was due to meet Putin in the Kremlin today.
It was his third official visit to Moscow since he came to power in 1981. Diplomatic sources in Cairo said the two leaders will discuss the fate of the grounded Middle East peace road map, the transfer of sovereignty from the US-led coalition to the Iraqis on June 30 and a US-proposed reforms for the Middle East.
US President George W. Bush is hoping to use a summit of the Group of Eight (G-8), which he hosts on June 9 in Georgia, as a springboard for the scheme known as the Greater Middle East Initiative.
During his visit to Romania, Mubarak said Egypt was “not concerned” by the US reforms initiative, which Egypt fears will alienate the 22-member Arab League based in Cairo. Egypt and Russia agree on the need to relaunch the moribund Israeli-Palestinian peace process on the basis of the so-called roadmap, which calls for the creation of a Palestinian state side by side with Israel by 2005.
“Terrorism is an international phenomenon and it will spread if we do not begin fighting it right now with legal methods and through the United Nations,” Mubarak told Russia’s Itar-Tass news agency before leaving for Moscow.
Jordan’s King Abdallah will attend the G-8 summit and will bring to the table Arab concerns over Iraq and the Arab-Israeli conflict, a government spokeswoman said in Amman yesterday. “King Abdallah will make clear Jordan’s reform drive, which began some time ago, and reiterate that the Palestinian issue is an essential part of achieving reform in the region,” Asma Khader told Reuters.
In another development, around 20 Palestinians stranded in a Jordanian desert camp were yesterday preparing to return to Iraq, which they fled more than a year ago, after the UNHCR failed to relocate them elsewhere, the agency said in Amman.
“There is a group of around 20 Palestinians who are packing up and planning to return to Iraq today,” a spokeswoman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees told AFP. A statement by the UN agency Wednesday said 46 Palestinians from the Ruweished camp near the Jordan-Iraq border had already returned to Iraq over the past week and that 30 others planned to leave in the coming days.
