Peres to Meet With Mubarak on Peace Bids

GENEVA — Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres will meet here today in a new attempt to arrange an Arab-Israeli peace conference this year, Western diplomats said Wednesday.

Mubarak said on his arrival Wednesday that he would confer with Peres during the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development, which both men will attend later this week.

Western diplomatic sources said the meeting will take place this afternoon at the hillside Inter-Continental Hotel overlooking Lake Geneva, where Mubarak is staying.

In Geneva, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Richard W. Murphy met with Mubarak in the Egyptian leader’s suite at the Inter-Continental Hotel, Western diplomatic sources reported.

Murphy briefed Mubarak on his two days of talks earlier this week in Geneva with Vladimir P. Polyakov, head of the Soviet Foreign Ministry’s Middle East section.

Though spokesmen for both sides declined to confirm there was a meeting, the sources said they exchanged views on the subject of a Mideast peace conference.