CAIRO, Oct 26 (AFP) - Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said Tuesday that the international community must resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the situation in Iraq if it hopes to win the war on terrorism.
"The Iraqi problem and the Palestinian issue" are the main factors behind "the phenomenon of violence and terrorism," spokesman Maged Abdel Fattah quoted Mubarak as having told Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn, whose country is set to assume the rotating presidency of the European Union in January.
"Combating terrorism and violence in the Middle East begins by resolving these two issues," he told reporters after the two men met in Cairo.
The Mubarak-Asselborn talks focused on Iraq, the crisis in Sudan's war-ravaged Darfur region and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, said Abdel Fattah.
They also discussed an upcoming international conference on Iraq that Egypt will host next month, at which Cairo hopes to present a nine-point resolution.
The resolution, while stressing respect for Iraqi sovereignty and territorial integrity, nonetheless makes no mention of a timetable for a withdrawal of US-led forces that some countries had wanted to include in the talks.
Asselborn told reporters he wanted to sound out the Egyptian leader's views on important regional issues, before travelling to Israel and the Palestinian territories.
10/26/2004 13:20 GMT - AFP