Jordan Times
Wednesday, September 19, 2001
'Jordan, Egypt agree to join US anti-terrorism efforts'
By Saad G. Hattar
with agency dispatches
A high-ranking official said the King and Mubarak, who held talks at the Red Sea resort of Sharm El Sheikh, “lambasted the bloody terrorist attacks on the US and regretted the deaths of innocent victims.”
“Both leaders underscored the need for combating all sorts of terrorist acts and called for universal cooperation with a consensus in the face of this phenomenon,” the source added.
While the two leaders called for “cornering terrorist elements wherever they are and drying up their resources,” they stressed the importance of differentiating between “terrorist organisations and states.”
They also rejected “false accusations against Islam and the Arabs,” and stated that terrorism “has no religion or homeland,” according to the same source.
The King and Mubarak discussed the possible repercussions of “the attacks on the US, notably in the Middle East,” and said they were counting on the continuation of peace efforts to contain the Israeli aggression against the Palestinians.
Egyptian Information Minister Safwat Sharif told reporters at Sharm El Sheikh that the two leaders weighed the impact of the incidents in the US on the world and Middle East as well as “Israel's exploitation of these acts to commit illegal and terrorist acts.”
The King held one-on-one talks with Mubarak before the two leaders went into broader consultations with senior officials from both sides.
The Jordanian delegation included Prime Minister Ali Abul Ragheb, Chief of the Royal Court Fayez Tarawneh and Foreign Minister Abdul Ilah Khatib.
Mubarak was joined by his Prime Minister Atef Obeid, Defence Minister Field Marshal Mohammad Hussein Tantawi, Foreign Minister Ahmad Maher and the head of Mubarak's office, Zakariya Azmi.
Talks focused on regional and international developments after the Sept. 11 suicide plane attacks on targets in New York and Washington as well as efforts to restore calm in the Middle East, officials here said.
A senior official said King Abdullah was “trying to build a unified Arab position against terrorism for the common interest of Arabs.”
The King had received a telephone call from Mubarak on Monday.
Also on Monday, His Majesty telephoned Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat for similar deliberations.
The two leaders have been calling for an international conference to combat terrorism, while Mubarak warned that US plans to forge a coalition and launch an attack against countries suspected of harbouring terrorists threaten to divide the world.
The King said in a recent interview that he doubted the attacks would have taken place had Washington helped solve the problems in the Middle East, especially the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
Egypt and Jordan are Washington's closest Arab allies and the only two Arab countries to have signed peace treaties with Israel, in 1979 and 1994 respectively.
In the mid-1990s Sharm Al Sheikh hosted a US-brokered international conference to combat terrorism, and the late King Hussein called then for forging a clear-cut mechanism to eradicate this phenomenon.