CAIRO:Â Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak will meet on Monday with top American government officials, including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, ahead of his first visit to the White House in five years. Despite the protests from Copts and Egyptians abroad, the leader hopes to cement his relationship with new American President Barack Obama. Egyptian officials told reporters that Mubarak would also hold talks with National Security Advisor James Jones and Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair, “as well as a closed-door meeting with representatives from eight leading US Jewish groups.” Among the Jewish organizations were the American Israel Public Affairs Committee – the leading pro-Israel lobby in the United States – J Street and the Anti-Defamation League. The Egyptian leader is to visit the White House early Tuesday. The meeting will be the third time in as many months that the pair have met, with Obama stressing early in his term he would make the stalled Middle East peace process a top priority of his administration, although the ongoing financial crisis and efforts to push health care reform in the United States has stymied those efforts somewhat. Mubarak's talks with senior Obama administration officials are expected to focus on the peace process, Sudan and Iran's nuclear program, Israel and Palestine, according to Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit. “The visit now comes at a critical time,” Abul Gheit told Al-Ahram newspaper on Saturday, “because the American side is coming closer to announcing its vision on how to achieve peace and end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.” The foreign minister, who stood in for Mubarak in May when the president withdrew from a planned American visit after the death of his grandson, is also part of the Egyptian delegation for this trip, along with Egypt's intelligence chief Omar Soliman and a number of top ministeres. The talks come as the United States is pressuring Israel to halt settlement activity, but also demanding that Arab countries take further steps toward normalization with the Jewish state. Egypt is one of only two Arab states to have formally signed a peace treaty with Israel. Despite the treaty, culturally the two countries remain at odds, with Egypt's cinema, actors and other artistic guilds maintaining a boycott of all things Israeli. This includes actors from even participating in a film with an Israeli citizen. The North African country also plays a role in efforts to improve relations between the feuding Palestinian political factions Hamas and Fatah and is currently seeking a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas, who fought a war in January that left over 1,000 Palestinians in Gaza dead. Cairo is also moving into the Darfur situation, hoping that it will be able to secure a peace deal in the ongoing conflict that has left over 250,000 people dead and another 3 million displaced. BM
