CAIRO, 1 June 2006 — Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah held two rounds of talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Sharm El-Sheikh yesterday. The talks focused on major regional and global developments, most importantly the developments in the Palestinian issue and the situation in Iraq, the Saudi Press Agency said. (Picture on Page 2)
The talks at the International Conference Center in the Egyptian resort were attended by top officials including Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal, Prince Muqrin, chief of intelligence, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit and Information Minister Anas Al-Feqi.
According to Saudi press reports, Abdullah and Mubarak were to discuss a new international initiative to revive Israeli-Palestinian peace talks in coordination with Washington. “A new international action will be launched in the region to break the stalemate in the Palestinian-Israeli negotiations,” one Saudi paper said.
Informed sources said the new initiative would be coupled with an Arab effort to settle the despute between Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and the Hamas government. A “troika” of Sudan and Saudi Arabia, as present and future Arab summit chairs, as well as Arab League chief Amr Moussa, will mediate between the two sides to enable the Palestinian Authority to negotiate with Israel, the sources added.
