CAIRO, 25 June 2004 — President Hosni Mubarak, clad in pajamas and a dressing gown, addressed the Egyptian people yesterday from his hospital room in Germany to reassure them over his health.

In a brief statement aired on state television, the 76-year-old Mubarak also sought to prepare his people for an extended absence. “Rest assured I will return as soon as I complete my treatment so that we can continue together our march,” said Mubarak who is being treated in an exclusive clinic in Munich, southern German for a slipped disc.

“I am currently following a treatment. The doctors are excellent and have said they will not carry out surgery until they are sure that the treatment is having results,” he said. “It will take time, but not too much.”

But the president admitted that if the therapy failed he would have to undergo surgery. He did not elaborate. Doctors have delayed an initial decision to operate on Mubarak to try out a new medication.

“The general state of the president’s health is excellent,” Egyptian Health Minister Awad Tajeddin told state television on Wednesday from Germany. Speaking by a satellite telephone link, Mubarak said his absence from Egypt should be seen as a week’s holiday.

“It is as if I took a week’s holiday. Don’t you ever take time off? One has to rest a bit,” he said, speaking for about a minute.

His tone of voice switched from formal to emotional, and the president, using popular dialect, said: “I thank my people who are worried over my health.”

Mubarak also reassured the Egyptian people that despite his hospitalization, he was “directing work from here up to a certain point” and the “government is working” even during his absence. “There is no problem. If the (Cabinet) ministers need something I speak to them,” he said.

Meanwhile, ministers from Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia met in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh yesterday to discuss exploiting the waters of the Nile, the state MENA news agency said. The three water ministers were scheduled to discuss drinking water projects, the building of hydro-electric power stations, and the establishment of experimental farms and fishing zones in depressed areas, MENA said.

Colonial-era agreements imposed by Britain prohibit Nile basin states other than Egypt from undertaking projects that would reduce the river’s flow. But in 1999 Egypt finally agreed with the other nine littoral states to thrash out a new framework for sharing the river’s resources.