CAIRO: Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit indicated that US President Barack Obama will address the Muslim world on June 4 from the city of Cairo. In an interview on the Al-Arabiya news channel Tuesday, Aboul Gheit said that the United States has chosen Cairo to host Obama's long-awaited speech. The United States announced last week that the speech would be given from Egypt, but had not yet specified the city. Aboul Gheit shed light on the matter by saying, "When the United States chose Cairo, it chose the capital of a country it has old ties of friendship with, and a country of influence which has good relations with everybody. The foreign minister also indicated that Al-Azhar had not yet been chosen as the venue for Obama's speech. "We welcome his speech and we hope it's a real change, Deputy Secretary of the Muslim Brotherhood bloc in the People's Assembly Mohammed El-Beltagy told Daily News Egypt, "It seems he wants to talk to the people and not the leaders of Islamic countries on issues which previous American administrations had handled unfairly. We welcome Obama as long as fairness is instituted in policy and it is not just words. "Egypt has Al-Azhar, which is the oldest Islamic institution in the world, and this way Obama taps into the cultural and religious aspects of the region when he makes his speech, head of the Arab Socialist Party Waheed Al-Aqsari told Daily News Egypt. "The speech will attempt to revive the symbolic stature of Egypt in the region. It improves the image of the political leadership internally and externally. And in this way Egyptian allegiance to US policy is secured, he added. In the interview, Aboul Gheit also spoke of nuclear issues in the region, and dismissed the notion of a need to possess an "Islamic nuclear weapon. "There is no need for an Islamic nuclear weapon, and there is no inclination from the Arab countries to stand and watch one part of the region or another try and institute its hegemony, he said. "He's speaking about Iran, Al-Aqsari said, "I don't think Iran has reached the point where they possess a nuclear weapon. It is because of the tenseness of relations between the two countries, so the foreign minister is trying to diminish the Iranian role by saying that an Iranian bomb does not automatically mean an Islamic one. Aboul Gheit also said in an interview with Rose Al-Youssef published Tuesday that there were pressures on Egypt's nuclear program, adding that Egypt would not sign any nonproliferation treaties of chemical and biological weapons until Israel signs up to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. "There are hundreds of Zionist nuclear warheads in the area, which are very close to the Egyptian borders, thus threatening our national security. This should be our concern. I would think if a Muslim country in the region were to possess the bomb then that would create some balance against the [Israeli] warheads, El-Beltagy said.
