Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher insisted Thursday on a link between working for peace in the Middle East and the US-led war on terrorism, challenging a statement by US President George W. Bush, reported AFP.
"All questions are linked," he told journalists, in reaction to comments from Bush who said Wednesday that bringing peace to the Middle East was not necessary to bring to justice chief terror suspect Osama bin Laden.
"Continued tensions in Palestine and the absence of a settlement to the Palestinian problem create frustration, despair and anger," he said.
Maher said after a meeting with the US ambassador to Egypt, David Walsh, that such frustration can be exploited "to ask certain people to carry out terrorist acts".
At a joint press conference with British Prime Minister Tony Blair in Washington, Bush said "there's no doubt in my mind we'll bring (bin Laden's) Al-Qaeda (network) to justice, peace or no peace in the Middle East."
But Maher called for "rapid American action" to bring peace to the region "because the Israeli government does not want peace."
On reports of an Israeli plan for Palestinian independence by phases, starting with the Gaza Strip, the Egyptian foreign minister said his country had long rejected any "'Gaza First' proposal" from the Jewish state.
Arab states want "an independent and totally sovereign Palestinian state on all the territories occupied" since the 1967 Middle East war, he said.
In the same context, Egypt’s mission at the UN criticized Israel’s practices in the Occupied Territories, describing them as war crimes in violation to all human laws, according to a report by the Cairo-based daily, Al Ahram – Albawaba.com
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