Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has urged Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to resume peace negotiations with Syria at the point they stopped four years ago, Information Minister Safwat al-Sherif said.
Mubarak noted "the importance of progress in the peace process after listening clearly to the opinion of President Bashar al-Assad," who visited Egypt last month, Sherif said, according to AFP.
Mubarak said he had made his request in a letter sent on January 15, Sherif disclosed.
The president added that he had "stressed the same idea to the American president in a message given to his special envoy" William Burns.
The minister quoted Mubarak as saying that "reaching a settlement on the Syrian track will be a factor helping achieve a parallel settlement on the Palestinian track and settling outstanding issues on the Lebanese track" of the peace process.
"Syria is ready to resume its negotiations to achieve peace and recover all its territories and to start these negotiations from the point where they had stopped" in January 2000, Sherif said. (Albawaba.com)
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