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Mubarak to meet Obama, officials

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak was scheduled to meet key US government officials yesterday, including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, ahead of his first White House visit in five years.

Egyptian officials said Mubarak would also hold talks with National Security Advisor James Jones and Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair, as well as a closed-door meeting with representatives from eight leading US Jewish groups.

Among the Jewish organizations were the American Israel Public Affairs Committee — the leading pro-Israel lobby in the US — J Street and the Anti-Defamation League.

The Egyptian leader is to visit the White House early today for his first White House talks with US President Barack Obama. The meeting will be the third time in as many months that the pair have met, with Obama stressing early in his term he would make the stalled Middle East peace process a top priority of his administration.

The New York Times said the Egyptian leader is expected to tell the Obama administration that Arab countries want peace, but are unwilling to abide Obama’s call to make good-faith concessions to Israel until Israel takes tangible steps like freezing settlements in the West Bank.

Mubarak’s talks with senior members of the Obama administration are also expected to focus on Sudan and Iran’s nuclear program, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit said.

“The visit now comes at a critical time,” Abul Gheit told Al-Ahram newspaper on Saturday, “because the American side is coming closer to announcing its vision on how to achieve peace and end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”

The foreign minister, who stood in for Mubarak in May when the president withdrew from a planned US visit after the death of his grandson, is also part of the Egyptian delegation for this trip, along with Egypt’s intelligence chief and finance, trade and information ministers.

The talks come as the US is pressuring Israel to halt settlement activity, but also demanding that Arab countries take further steps toward normalization with the Jewish state.

Egypt is one of only two Arab states to have formally normalized ties with Israel. It also plays a role in efforts to improve relations between the warring Palestinian political factions Hamas and Fatah, and is seeking a truce between Israel and Hamas, who fought a devastating war over the New Year.

Cairo is mediating reconciliation talks between the Western-backed Fatah in the West Bank and the Islamist Hamas rulers of the Gaza Strip, but so far neither those efforts, nor attempts to restart Israeli-Palestinian talks have made much progress. With the focus set firmly on common foreign policy concerns, there is likely to be less talk of democracy and political reform in meetings between US officials and Mubarak, a former air force commander who has ruled Egypt since 1981.
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