The Palestinians will not accept an Israeli proposal to hold elections in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak told President Bush on Monday.
Mubarak’s rejection of the Israeli Proposal, which Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir is expected to present later this week, came during a 55 minute meeting at the White House, 30 minutes of which was a private session between the two leaders in the Oval Office.
Speaking to reporters after their meeting, Bush made one of his strongest statement to date on the need for Israel to withdraw from the administered territories.
“Egypt and the United States share the goals of security for Israel, the end of the occupation and the achievement of Palestinian political rights,” he said.
Shamir revealed in an interview with The New York Times last Friday that he will propose the elections when he meets with Secretary of State James Baker on Wednesday and with Bush on Thursday. But he stressed that elections can not be held as long as the Palestinian uprising in the territories continues.
Mubarak “felt that elections certainly would not be acceptable to the Palestinians under the supervision of the Israelis,” a senior administration official said after the White House meeting.
He said Bush asked if elections would be acceptable under other forms of supervision. But the official refused to give any other details of the conversation.
After the White House meeting, Bush and Mubarak made brief remarks to reporters in the Rose Garden before leaving by helicopter for Baltimore, where Bush officially opened the baseball season.
DISAGREE ON PEACE CONFERENCE
The two leaders declared they shared the common goal of a comprehensive peace in the Middle East, based on United Nations Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338. They agreed that the agreement must be reached via direct negotiations.
Mubarak also said that “we are both opposed to the annexation of the occupied territories as firmly as we stand against any irredentist claims and vengeful acts.”
This was apparently Mubarak’s way of saying that the Palestinians would not be supported in their claims for all of Israel once they achieved their rights in the territories.
Neither Bush nor Mubarak mentioned a separate Palestinian state, which the Bush administration is on record as opposing.
But the two presidents did differ on whether a settlement required an international conference. “That settlement should be achieved through direct negotiations between Israel and all Arab parties, within the framework of the international peace conference,” Mubarak said.
Bush would only say that “a properly structured international conference can find a useful role at the appropriate time.”
The senior administration official who briefed reporters explained that the United States believes that there is “a lot of ground that has to be covered” before an international conference can be held.
The Bush administration has reaffirmed the Reagan administration’s position that an international conference must lead to direct negotiations and not be a substitute for them.
Bush said the meeting Monday was “particularly timely” because it came “10 years after Egypt and Israel signed their historic treaty of peace.”
He said that “10 years of peace between Egypt and Israel demonstrates that peace works and it can work for Israelis and Palestinians as well.”
DOES NOT MENTION TREATY
Mubarak, however, did not mention the peace treaty, which had been signed at the White House 10 years and eight days earlier.
Mubarak leaves Washington for New York on Wednesday, the day Shamir arrives here. The Egyptian president turned down a request from Shamir to postpone his departure, so that they could meet with Bush to commemorate the peace treaty.
Asked for an explanation, the administration official said Mubarak believes such a meeting should have substance and move things forward rather than just being ceremonial.
But Israeli Ambassador Moshe Arad has been invited to attend a White House dinner Bush is giving in Mubarak’s honor Tuesday night.
During their White House meeting, Bush and Mubarak also discussed the need to end violence by all sides, according to the administration official.
Mubarak, who said that the Palestine Liberation Organization “has accepted unequivocally the requirements for peace,” reportedly told Bush that PLO leader Yasir Arafat could not end the uprising in the territories even if he wanted to.
Bush told Mubarak that “we are equally concerned by the attempted incursions since December” into Israel by PLO groups, the official reported. He said that Mubarak replied that Arafat cannot control all the factions within the PLO.
The official also said that Mubarak strongly denied reports that Egypt is developing chemical weapons.
Shamir, who will be staying at Blair House, the official government residence, has a full schedule of meeting in Washington. After arriving here Wednesday morning, he will go the State Department for a meeting and working lunch with Baker.
This will be followed by meetings with Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, Commerce Secretary Robert Mosbacher, and Housing and Urban Development Secretary Jack Kemp.
On Thursday, after meeting with Bush, Shamir will meet with Vice President Dan Quayle and then the House Foreign Affairs Committee. He will be Bush’s guest at a White House dinner Thursday night and will meet with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Friday morning.
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