Bush praises Egypt’s path to ‘openness’

President Bush, wrapping up a series of visits with Arab leaders who are working to expand their economies but wary of relaxing their grip on power, on Wednesday praised Egypt as making progress toward “greater political openness.”

He made no mention of the Egyptian government’s continued crackdowns on dissent and the jailing of an opposition presidential candidate.

With President Hosni Mubarak standing expressionless beside him, Bush said journalists, bloggers and judges in Egypt were “insisting on independence” and, along with civic and religious leaders, were “determined to build a democratic future.”

He said the Egyptian leader had moved his nation toward “economic openness . . . and democratic reform.”

But, in a diplomatic nudge, he said: “My hope is that the Egyptian government will build on these important steps and give the people of this proud nation a greater voice in [Egypt’s] future. I think it will lead to peace, and I think it will lead to justice.”

Bush made no reference to the jailing of Ayman Nour after the dissident challenged Mubarak in the most recent presidential election, held in 2005. Mubarak has ruled Egypt since 1981.

Nor did Bush refer to any of the issues raised in the State Department’s annual report last March on human rights, which said of Egypt: “The government’s respect for human rights remained poor, and serious abuses continued in many areas.”

The report cited abuses including a state of emergency in effect almost continuously since 1967, torture of prisoners, arbitrary arrest, limits imposed by the executive branch on the judiciary, and restrictions on freedom of speech, assembly, religion and full access to the Internet.

Bush and Mubarak read prepared statements to reporters after a private meeting and lunch but did not take questions. Until hours before the two met at a lush resort here at the southern tip of the Sinai peninsula, it was uncertain that Mubarak would join Bush in delivering a statement. Once White House officials made it clear that Bush would speak to reporters regardless of Mubarak’s plans, the Egyptian president agreed to participate. However, he spoke only briefly.

Bush left Washington on Jan. 8, first visiting Israel and the West Bank. He then began a series of meetings with powerful hereditary leaders in Kuwait, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia before arriving here Wednesday. He was scheduled to return to the U.S. on Wednesday night.

Bush was on the ground in Sharm el Sheik for barely 2 1/2 hours. The brief visit brought the focus of the trip back to the issue that was paramount in Jerusalem and the West Bank city of Ramallah and that the president has suggested will take up more of his attention during his final year in office: peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians.

Speaking with reporters in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on Tuesday, the president said that the leaders of Persian Gulf states with whom he spoke during the last week had told him a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian issues was the key to easing the region’s broader problems, among them the threats of political instability and terrorism.

“Many of the leaders in the region, many of the people I have spoken to, equate troubled times with no peace between the Palestinians and Israelis,” the president said.

But Bush has to convince others that he has the will and authority to wrestle with the issue after making the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan his foreign policy priorities.

“They wanted to make sure that the efforts by the United States were real,” the president said Tuesday, adding that the leaders with whom he had met were “interested in commitment and vision” rather than in the specific negotiating positions of the Israelis and Palestinians.

The trip was the first of six foreign journeys the president had planned at the start of the year -- and he announced a seventh while in Jerusalem. He is planning to return there in May for celebrations commemorating the 60th anniversary of Israel’s founding.

In the coming weeks, he will deliver his State of the Union message and his budget proposal for fiscal 2009 and then take off for Africa. He has later trips planned to Central Europe, two to Asia and, as of now, a final visit to South America after the presidential election in November.

But as the major U.S. parties’ presidential nomination battles wind down and the winners become apparent, his ability to draw the attention of the American public -- and the confidence of foreign leaders that he remains powerful in more than a military sense -- will face a new challenge.

A survey last week by the Project for Excellence in Journalism found that U.S. newspapers and newscasts gave 4% of their coverage space or time to the president’s trip, compared with 49% devoted to the primary campaign.

Counting the president and the two major candidates to succeed him, there are, in effect, three heads of government, said Simon Serfaty, a foreign policy expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

Foreign leaders “will wonder who . . . they should listen to,” he said. Locking in any deal with other governments will be all the more difficult “because of the two other voices,” one of which will belong to the next president, Serfaty said.

On Wednesday, Bush went out of his way to convince skeptics that the political calendar notwithstanding, he was committed to staying involved in the effort to negotiate an Israeli-Palestinian agreement.

“There’s a wonder whether or not the American president, when he says something, whether he actually means it,” Bush said. “When I say I’m coming back to stay engaged, I mean it. And when I say I’m optimistic we can get a deal done, I mean what I’m saying.”

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james.gerstenzang@latimes.com