Bush's brief Egypt visit shows up cooler ties
1 day ago

CAIRO (AFP) — US President George W. Bush is to make a lightning stop in Egypt on Wednesday at the end of an eight-day Middle East tour, in a sign of the cooling in ties between the two allies.

The US leader will spend only three hours at the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh for talks with President Hosni Mubarak, a presidential source said, on a stop that is seen as more protocol than politics.

"President Mubarak shares the general discontent with Bush's policies in Iraq and Israel," Mustafa Kamal al-Sayyed, a politics professor at Cairo University, told AFP.

"He will receive (Bush) warmly but won't share his ideas," Sayyed said, noting that, in a keynote speech in Abu Dhabi on Monday, Bush made no mention of Egypt in a list of Middle East countries moving towards democracy.

The courtesy visit even failed to rally more than a cluster of protesters around Cairo.

"He is a murderer of Palestinians and Iraqis, we cannot host him in Egypt, never!" cried Islamist opposition figure Mohammed Abdel Qoddus as he stood on the steps of the journalists' union building with about a dozen others.

The opposition press, reflecting the public mood, ran headlines against Bush's visit while the state-owned press made scant mention of the stop.

"Send him back home," wrote the Egyptian opposition daily Al-Destur, while liberal opposition newspaper Al-Wafd described Bush as a "heavy guest."

The relationship between the long-time strategic allies has taken a slight downturn, particularly over Washington's criticism of Egypt's role in securing its border with the Gaza Strip.

On the eve of Bush's visit, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice urged Cairo to do more to stop arms smuggling into the Palestinian territory, which has been under the control of Islamist group Hamas since June.

The US Congress last month froze 100 million dollars in aid until Rice could certify that Egypt was doing enough to stem the arms flow.

Bush is winding up a Middle East tour which included stops in Israel and the West Bank, where he predicted a peace deal could be sealed before his term ends in January 2009.

In comments published on Tuesday, the Egyptian leader said Bush must press Palestinians and Israelis to agree a balanced outcome in any Middle East peace accord.

Mubarak told the Swiss newspaper Tages-Anzeiger the "Palestinians are scared they will only get a small territory."

The American president "must push the two parties to find a just solution and must take into consideration the needs of the Palestinians," said Mubarak.

The Egyptian leader, whose country in 1979 became the first Arab state to make peace with Israel, said he would press his concerns when he meets Bush in Sharm el-Sheikh

AFP: Bush's brief Egypt visit shows up cooler ties