Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher reportedly said in an interview this week that the US was losing patience with Israel's current policies, seeing them as less than conducive to American and Western interests in the region.
In an interview with the Egyptian magazine Al Musawar due to come out Friday, Maher said the Arab message that Israeli policies in the area were increasingly inimical to American interests was relayed to US Secretary of State Colin Powell when he last visited the Mideast, according to the official Kuwaiti news agency, KUNA.
Maher criticized Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's policies and assessed his proposal of a seven-day period of no fighting between Israeli and Palestinian sides as "peculiar."
Maher, currently in Paris, said on Tuesday that sending only US nationals to the Middle East to monitor the implementation of the Mitchell report's recommendations would not be a problem, according to AFP.
"The nationality of the observers is not a great problem, even if they are all of the same nationality, and if they are only American. What is important is that they arrive on the ground and observe," Maher told journalists after meeting French President Jacques Chirac.
Israel is opposed to allowing an international team into the region to monitor progress on the Mitchell Plan.
However, it has said that more CIA agents from the United States, a traditional ally of Israel, could be sent.
The CIA helped broker a ceasefire on June 13, and its personnel have been monitoring the truce since then.
Maher, who was making his first visit to France since being named minister, said he had given Chirac a message from Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak concerning what he called "dangerous developments" in the region.
He said he and Chirac had discussed ways to halt the violence that followed the Palestinian uprising, or Intifada, last September.
Maher said they had talked about using the implementation of the Mitchell report as a roadmap towards final status negotiations between the Palestinians and the Israelis based on the principle of land for peace.
Chirac's spokeswoman said the president had agreed that "demanding 100 percent results in the fight against terrorists attacks would, in reality, play into the hands of extremists." – Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
