CLINTON TALKS WITH MUBARAK AMID ARAB BACKLASH
Baku, 4 November (AZERTAC). US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has arrived in Cairo for talks with President Hosni Mubarak aimed at pushing forward with Mideast peace talks and dispelling Arab fears over Washington`s perceived change of stance on Israeli settlement growth.
Clinton, facing an Arab backlash over her praise for Israel`s offer to ease settlement growth, arrived in Cairo on Tuesday for hastily convened talks with President Hosni Mubarak.
She was to go straight into a meeting with Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit and intelligence chief Omar Suleiman and meet Mubarak on Wednesday morning.
Cairo has long been a key player in international efforts to bring about an end to the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Clinton extended her regional trip after she was criticized for praising as "unprecedented" a pledge by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to limit settlement growth, steps that fall far short of previous US demands for a complete halt to all settlement activity.
The settlements in the West Bank and annexed east Jerusalem, which Israel seized in the 1967 war with its Arab neighbors, are home to nearly 500,000 Israelis and are considered illegal by the international community.
Arab officials accused the Obama administration of reneging on its call earlier this year for a complete end to settlement building and said Clinton`s clarifications did not go far enough.
Other news in this section
