Berlin--President Hosni Mubarak held a series of meetings Thursday with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, in which the two heads of state discussed a number of regional and international issues of common interest, including efforts to restart the Middle East "peace process." Mubarak reportedly briefed Merkel on ongoing efforts by Egypt to reconcile Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah. The two leaders also discussed efforts aimed at reinforcing the Egypt-Germany bilateral relationship in a number of different fields, including commercial exchanges and German investment in Egypt. Mubarak and Merkel also talked about means of encouraging German businessmen to carry out joint projects in Egypt in the fields of industrial production and public services so as to allow German companies to benefit from Egypt's geographic location and its many cooperation agreements with Arab and African states. While in Germany, Mubarak also stopped at Heidelberg's renowned medical center, where he received treatment for a gallbladder condition. Notably, none of the major German newspapers covered the Mubarak visit. Nor did they devote much time to a concurrent visit by former International Atomic Energy Agency director Mohamed ElBaradei, who had been scheduled to meet high-ranking German officials. Reuter's AlMA television network was the only German media outlet to cover the visit by ElBaradei, citing the latter's call for a "new security system" free of weapons of mass destruction. Translated from the Arabic Edition.
