Egypt Rejects Taking Part in Attack on Iraq, Mubarak Says

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, a staunch supporter of U.S. policy in the Persian Gulf, said in remarks published Monday that Egypt would not participate in a military strike against Iraq.

Asked if Egypt would consider joining other Arabs to keep order in Iraq after a U.S. attack, Mubarak told the weekly Mayo newspaper:

“No. We have nothing to do with Iraq. But it is no problem at all to enter Kuwait as a peacekeeping force. In fact it is natural,” he was quoted as saying.

Mubarak said he has told Iraqi President Saddam Hussein that he would help arrange for Arab troops to separate Iraq and Kuwait and offered to mediate an Iraqi withdrawal if Baghdad asked.

“I would forget all the insults and filthy words against us that pour out of Baghdad. . . . I am ready to exert all I can secretly and openly to persuade the Americans and European countries, and would shuttle between every capital.”

Also Monday, Chinese Foreign Minister Qian Qichen arrived in Saudi Arabia fresh from talks with Hussein. He is expected to brief Saudi leaders on his talks and on Iraq’s response to a proposed emergency Arab summit on the Persian Gulf crisis, Riyadh Radio said.

Qian, a key player in the crisis because his country has the power to veto any U.N. Security Council resolution calling for force, said that Beijing seeks a peaceful settlement to the three-month-old standoff.

Cairo Radio quoted Qian--the first foreign minister of a permanent U.N. Security Council member to visit Baghdad since its Aug. 2 invasion of Kuwait--as endorsing the proposed Arab summit.

King Hassan II of Morocco proposed Sunday that Arab leaders meet in an intensified effort to find a peaceful solution to the crisis that would counter what appear to be U.S. moves toward a military strike.

Of the 21 members of the Arab League, only the Palestine Liberation Organization, Jordan and Mauritania immediately accepted the proposal.

Iraq issued a statement suggesting that the proposal is a “cover for a Zionist-American aggression against Iraq,” but it laid out conditions under which it might participate--specifically calling for the Palestinian question to be placed on the agenda.

The head of the Gulf Cooperation Council, a Kuwaiti, said that group does not believe the conflict can be resolved by the Arab world.

“We have not much faith in what is called the Arab solution. I myself have no faith at all,” said Abdullah Bishara, general secretary of the gulf council, which groups Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman.

Bishara said he believes war with Iraq is inevitable.

Foreign ministers of the European Community, meanwhile, met in Belgium with their counterparts from the Mahgreb Arab states--Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Mauritania and Morocco--in hopes of boosting pressure for the release of hostages from Iraq.