Mubarak, Russia's Medvedev co-stress resumption of peace talks, two states solution

Arab foreign ministers in Cairo say resumed negotiations hinge on Israel's commitment to freeze settlements, life siege off Gaza

Saudi source denies reports on allowing Israeli aircraft to fly in national airspace

Palestinian strategic plan to face Israeli government

Washington: Settlement freeze includes East Jerusalem

Presidents Dmitry Medvedev and Hosni Mubarak signed a strategic partnership agreement on Tuesday.

The three-page document defines bilateral cooperation areas for the next decade.

Besides, Russia and Egypt signed an agreement on the transfer of convicts, an agreement on the suppression of drug and psychotropic substance trafficking, and an environmental cooperation memorandum.

The two justice ministries signed a document on mutual understanding. The Federal Archives Agency and the Egyptian National Library and Archives signed a cooperation memorandum. The Russian TV and Radio Broadcasting Company and the Egyptian Radio and Television Union signed a cooperation protocol.

Relations between Russia and Egypt are developing into strategic partnership, President Dmitry Medvedev told a Tuesday press conference he shared with Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak.

“Our negotiations were held in a frank and amicable atmosphere, which had always been characteristic of the top-level dialog between Russia and Egypt and had largely contributed to the achievement of impressive results. The strategic cooperation treaty we have signed will determine bilateral relations for years to come,” Medvedev said.

There are promising areas of cooperation between Russia and Egypt, he said.

“We have achieved rather good results in the economic cooperation. Bilateral trade exceeded $4 billion last year,” he noted.

“We have many promising projects in energy, transport and space exploration. There are new spheres of interaction, as well, such as ecology, archives and suppression of narcotics,” he said.

Tourism is one of the most dynamic spheres, Medvedev said.

“Tourism grew 22% last year to 1.8 million Russian visitors,” he said. “That is why we have signed the strategic partnership agreement that defines long-term cooperation guidelines.”

The three-page document defines bilateral cooperation areas for the next decade. It pledges regular political contacts and biannual presidential visits. Parliamentary contacts will develop, as well.

A separate article of the treaty is dedicated to trade and economic relations. “The sides will ponder the possible establishment of a free trade zone,” the agreement runs.

They will center on infrastructural projects, including those in alternative energy resources, housing construction, transport, telecommunications, tourism and mineral development.

“The sides traditionally develop defense and military-technical cooperation with due account of mutual interests and international commitments,” the agreement runs.

The sides will develop cooperation in science, education, tourism, humanitarian affairs, culture and exchanges between youth and sports organizations.

The ten-year agreement will enter into force upon the completion of internal formalities. It may be extended automatically for another five years if neither side chooses to end the agreement’s validity.

Medvedev said he has secured the support of Israel and all other involved parties for Middle East peace talks, as he seeks to boost his country’s influence in the region.

A “Moscow conference on the Middle East should become an important stage in our actions” toward peace talks, Medvedev said in a speech to the 22-member Arab League in Cairo. “Today we have principal agreement from all parties.”

The Russian president also warned against forcing democracy on Arab states and praised U.S. President Barack Obama's address to the Arab world, saying it showed more tolerance.

U.S. influence has eclipsed Russia’s role in the Middle East since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Medvedev’s speech to the Arab League comes less than three weeks after Obama traveled to Cairo and called for a “new beginning” for the U.S. and the Muslim world.

“There are things to learn from the Arab world and therefore, mentoring, forcing democracy and especially direct interference are absolutely inadmissible,” Medvedev said. “Understanding of this is growing in the world. One example is President Barrack Obama's speech.”

Medvedev also said he supports a Palestinian state with its capital in east Jerusalem as a result of a resolution to the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Earlier, Egyptian President Mubarak stressed his nation’s support for the proposed Moscow conference. Many Arabs still praise the former Soviet Union for supplying Egypt and Syria with arms, as well as technical and financial assistance, during their wars with Israel.

Medvedev’s visit was the first stop on a four-country African trip that also includes Nigeria, Namibia and Angola.

Russia, the world’s largest energy supplier, seeks allies among other producers. Companies including OAO Gazprom, OAO Rosneft, OAO Lukoil and OAO Novatek either have active projects in Nigeria, Angola and Egypt or seek to break into these markets, according to Russia’s Economy Ministry.

Russia and Egypt agreed on long-term wheat contracts that will increase shipments from the current annual level of about 3 million metric tons, Russian Deputy Economy Minister Andrei Slepnev told reporters.

The total value of Russian-Egyptian trade last year was $1.7 billion, down from $2.1 billion in 2007, according to data provided by the Russian government. It says about 1.8 million Russian tourists visited Egypt in 2008, contributing $2 billion to Egypt's economy.

The two countries also signed a 10-year strategic partnership agreement that focuses on energy and infrastructure projects and military cooperation.

In what many are certain to view as his response to Obama’s Cairo address earlier this month, Medvedev told the Arab League meeting that Russia is “an organic part” of the Muslim world and opposes Western efforts to promote democratic change in the Middle East.

“Islam,” Medvedev told his audience, “is an inalienable part of Russian history and culture, given that more than 20 million Russian citizens are among the faithful.

Consequently, he said, “Russia does not need to seek friendship with the Muslim world: Our country is an organic part of this world”.

But two other of the Russian leader’s comments were likely to be even more welcome by members of the Arab League.

On the one hand, he said Moscow opposes Western efforts to promote democratic change in the region. And on the other, he called for creating a Palestinian state with a capital in East Jerusalem.

Because of its own history, Medvedev said, Russia is sympathetic to “the striving of Arab countries to combine in their development the most contemporary trends with respect for national and religious traditions.” That is the only way, he said, “to strengthen political stability and to achieve economic prosperity and social well-being in the region.”

The Russian president argued that the Arab world had much to “teach” others as the world struggles to overcome the global crisis, which Medvedev said, bears “a civilizational character” and consequently, “any efforts at mentoring, the promotion of democratization, or even more direct interference from outside here, in [his] view, are absolutely impermissible.”

Moreover and in what many will see as a direct response to Obama’s support for democracy and human rights and the American president’s criticism of authoritarianism, Medvedev said that “any attempts” to “create a universal model of development” and extend it “to the entire world will not work” or will “unfortunately” lead to a catastrophe.”

And with respect to the Palestinian issue, the Russian president said that “the chief task now is the rapid renewal of Palestinian-Israeli negotiations” because “the pause which has arisen in them has dragged out too long,” a development which he said is generating “ever greater concern.”

Medvedev suggested that the upcoming Moscow conference on the Near East could play an important role in leading to the creation of “an independent, sovereign and viable Palestinian state with a capital in East Jerusalem, living in peace and security with all the countries of the region, including Israel.”

During the same visit to Cairo, Medvedev and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak signed a strategic partnership agreement outlining the directions of bilateral cooperation between the Russian Federation and Egypt over the next ten years as well as a number of specific accords on a variety of questions.

Medvedev’s remarks, which were only underscored by Moscow’s agreements with Egypt, were clearly intended to send a message to Arab and Muslim countries around the world that the Russian Federation is prepared to support their authoritarian regimes in the name of stability.

Moreover, the Russian president’s words were equally clearly intended to signal Western governments and especially Washington that Moscow is now prepared to actively oppose any moves to promote democracy and human rights in this region and to press Israel for concessions opening the way to the establishment of an independent Palestine.

But Medvedev’s argument may have the greatest resonance where he did not intend it: within the Russian Federation itself. Muslims there are certain to read his comments as the basis for making greater claims for their community and for opposing the newly intensified efforts of the Russian Orthodox Church to dominate the ideological scene there.

Meanwhile, the meeting of Arab Foreign Ministers in Cairo elected to support US President Barack Obama’s push for Middle East peace in Cairo on Wednesday.

The ministers agreed to back the plan outlined by Obama in his 4 June speech in Cairo, saying peace talks should not be resumed until a complete freeze in settlement building has been established. The ministers also noted in a statement following the meeting that they continued to back peace and a two-state solution according to the Arab Peace Initiative set out in 2002.

The statement said the ministers preferred a comprehensive regional peace deal including a broad Arab acceptance of Israel in exchange for an independent Palestinian state on the pre-1967 borders.

They added that comprehensive peace would not be possible without a complete withdrawal of the occupation from Palestinian and other Arab areas. They also noted that a just resolution to the refugee issue would be a prerequisite to a regional peace.

In the Saudi capital Riyadh, the defense ministry has strongly denied media reports that Saudi Arabia is planning to allow Israeli military planes to fly over its airspace.

"These reports are totally false and baseless," an official source at the Ministry of Defense and Aviation said on Saturday.

"All such reports circulated on this matter were no more than lying and pure fabrication that have no basis of truth at all," the ministry statement said.

The source also denied reports that Saudi military officials had met with their Israeli counterparts to discuss the issue.

"The source expressed surprise over such false media reports," the Saudi Press Agency quoted him as saying.

The US demand that Israeli settlement activity in the West Bank must cease includes East Jerusalem, a State Department spokesperson said on Monday.

In response to a question from Israel’s Jerusalem Post newspaper, Spokesperson of the department of state, Ian Kelly said, “We’re talking about all settlement activity, yeah, in the area across the line,” he said, referring to the 1948 armistice line, or Green Line.

Speaking at a Washington press briefing, Kelly had no immediate response to the proposed Israeli government 2009-2010 budget that allocates 250 million dollars over the next two years for settlements in the occupied West Bank.

Tens of millions of dollars are specifically earmarked for settlements like Har Homa, which, while they are built on occupied Palestinian land, are within Israel’s expanded municipal boundaries for Jerusalem.

Israel occupied East Jerusalem along with the rest of the West Bank, Gaza, the Sinai Peninsula, and the Golan Heights in June 1967. In 1980 Israel annexed the eastern half of Jerusalem, declaring the whole of the city its “eternal capital,” a step rejected by the UN Security Council.

International law makes no distinction between settlements built in Jerusalem and those in the rest of the West Bank. US policy has also historically not drawn a distinction. In a 1991 Letter of Assurances, entered in the official record of the Madrid Peace Conference, the US said, "We do not recognize Israel’s annexation of East Jerusalem or the extension of its municipal boundaries."

Israel and the US are currently at odds over President Barack Obama’s demand that all construction in settlements must cease as a precondition for renewed peace talks.