Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat held talks in Cairo Monday with Egyptian President, Hosni Mubarak, and Foreign Minister, Amr Moussa, who warned earlier the Arab-Israeli peace process was in danger of "blowing up."
Officials said Moussa went into the talks immediately after returning from Turkey, where he cut short a visit because of escalating Palestinian-Israeli violence and tension on Israel's borders with Syria and Lebanon.
"The peace process is in a very difficult phase and is in danger of blowing up," Moussa told Turkish private channel NTV which was taped earlier and broadcast Monday.
Arafat's visit to Egypt comes after Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Barak, Sunday asked Mubarak to urge the Palestinian leader to help restore "complete calm in Israel and the West Bank as quickly as possible."
Mazel said Barak also explained in the message why he did not travel last Thursday to Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, where Mubarak had wanted to gather Barak together with Arafat and US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.
He did not elaborate.
Barak Saturday gave the Palestinians two days to end the deadly clashes with Israeli forces that have shaken the region since September 28 or face the end of the peace process.
A Palestinian spokesman said Arafat would return to Gaza early afternoon before meeting UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, who will already have seen Barak on the first leg of a peacemaking mission.
In Washington, US officials said US President Bill Clinton might travel to the region this week for a summit with the Israeli, Palestinian and Egyptian leaders to try to cement an end to the violence and restart the peace process.
A possible venue for the meeting is Sharm el Sheikh, according to CNN.
In the Turkish television interview, Moussa called on Israel to avoid provocative acts against the Palestinians and said Egypt was trying to get both sides to sit down for face-to-face talks for a lasting settlement.
But he complained that Barak had failed to show up at the meeting in Sharm el-Sheikh Thursday.
Mubarak is, meanwhile, trying to organize an emergency Arab summit here October 21-22.
The change in the Egyptian minister's itinerary came just hours after he arrived in Ankara Sunday, for talks on bilateral issues and the Middle East, from Damascus where he met his Syrian counterpart Faruq al-Shara.
Moussa said Cem and he had agreed to work together to "save the peace process, let it go forward in a fair and balanced way to achieve just and lasting peace in the Middle East.
Cem said they had discussed ways to persuade the Palestinian and the Israeli side to agree to setting up an international committee to investigate the flare-up of violence.
More than 90 people have been killed in the past 1O days in violent unrest which erupted after a visit by right-wing Israeli hardliner Ariel Sharon to Jerusalem's al-Aqsa mosque compound, the third holiest site in Islam.
Turkey has fully-fledged diplomatic relations with the Palestinians and strong ties with Israel.
Egypt on the other hand, plays a key intermediary role as the first Arab country to have signed a peace treaty with Israel, which it did in 1979 -- CAIRO (AFP)
© 2000 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
