Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said yesterday Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon should not react to acts of Palestinian violence by scrapping peace talks.
That's what they always recommend, and there are always more attacks, aren't there? | "Experience says that it will never be possible that we can go on with negotiations if we say that all violence must stop," Mubarak said at a joint news conference with Chilean President Ricardo Lagos. Sharon has said he will not meet new Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas until he moves against militant groups behind an attack that killed six Israelis in Gaza last week. They had been expected to meet to discuss security coordination in the run-up to a planned Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and a possible revival of peace talks. Mubarak praised the approach of assassinated Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, whose policy was to fight violence as if there were no peace talks and talk peace regardless of violence.
But... ummm... he's dead now, isn't he? I mean, bumped off by an assassin? | "That's why I call on Prime Minister Sharon that he must go on with the peace process," he said. Mubarak also said in remarks published yesterday that peace between Israel and Syria was harder to achieve under Sharon than his predecessors.
That's why his predecessors all achieved it and he didn't, you know... | Syria said in December it wanted peace talks with Israel over the occupied Golan Heights to resume without any preconditions, but Israel said it opposed peace talks while Syria hosted Palestinian militant groups in Damascus. |