Posted on 06/24/2002 7:04:29 AM PDT by JohnHuang2
CAIRO, Jun 24, 2002 (Xinhua via COMTEX) -- Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on Monday had phone talks with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat on the worsening Mideast situation, an Egyptian presidential source told Xinhua.
The two leaders discussed how to deal with the Israeli acts in the occupied Palestinian lands and ways to create suitable conditions for the settlement of the Mideast crisis, the source said.
They also mulled Egypt's efforts to seek a way out of the current crisis based on relevant U.N. resolutions, he added.
The phone conversation came after the Israeli army once again besieged Arafat's compound in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Monday morning.
This was the second time that Israel has besieged Arafat's headquarters there in three months.
Earlier in the day, the Israeli army also declared six major Palestinian cities in the West Bank as closed military zones.
The Palestinian-Israeli violence has been mounting in the past few days with death tolls on both sides soaring.
The Israeli army has reoccupied most of the Palestinian- controlled cities in the West Bank and raided some targets in the Gaza Strip in recent days to avenge Palestinian suicide bombing attacks, which killed at least 30 people and wounded more than 100 others.
On Monday, Mubarak demanded that Israel end offensives against Palestinian towns.
"There is a need to put an end to the ongoing Israeli acts (in the Palestinian lands) to achieve security and justice in the region," Mubarak said Monday in a meeting with visiting French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin.
Copyright 2002 XINHUA NEWS AGENCY.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.