The World - News from March 31, 1988

President Hosni Mubarak rejected a Libyan diplomatic peace initiative, terming it an attempt to lead Egypt into dropping its guard. Col. Moammar Kadafi, Libya’s leader, announced that his country is reopening its border with Egypt and withdrawing its troops from the frontier. Mubarak scoffed at the move, saying that neither Egypt nor Libya has troops on the border. The border region was the site of a brief 1977 war between the two nations and has been closed since. The two nations broke off diplomatic relations the same year. A government spokesman said Mubarak told a political rally that he is “rejecting Kadafi’s call to reopen the border without controls in order to forestall any attempts at sabotage or terrorism.”