CAIRO - Egypt's Foreign Minister Nabil el-Arabi has denied he called for scrapping a peace treaty with Israel and reiterated Cairo is committed to the 1979 pact. “There are matters that need to be reviewed. For example, it was agreed in the (1978) Camp David accords and in the peace treaty, that Israel would have peace with all the countries that accept to have peace with it. But this did not happen,” el-Arabi said in an interview on the privately owned Dream TV late on Saturday. Egypt was the first Arab country to sign a peace treaty with Israel in 1979. “The Palestinians want to enter in peace with Israel, but the latter refuses. I did not say that Israel had violated any of the items of the peace treaty (with Egypt),” he added. According to the Egyptian official, peacemaking efforts have to focus on holding an international parley to settle the decades-old dispute in the Middle East “for the good of Israel, the Palestinians, the Arab countries and the whole world”. Nabil, who was given the Foreign Ministry post last month, rejected claims that Egypt has been sidelined from the Arab dispute with Israel. “On the contrary, the Palestinians see that Egypt is having a new spirit, new interests and is more aware of its responsibility. No doubt, it will restore its regional and international role,” he said. “If Israel once said that (ex-President) Mubarak was a strategic treasure for it, this will not happen after the January 25 revolution.”
