By Xinhua
Cairo : Visiting Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Wednesday wrapped up his short visit to Egypt, holding talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and other senior officials mainly on security issues related to the Mideast peace process and the Palestinian situation.
Following the meeting with Mubarak at the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, Barak said their talks focused on means of overcoming current difficulties, including fighting what he termed as terrorism in the Palestinian territory of Gaza, according to the official MENA news agency.
When asked about allegations of arms smuggling from Egypt to the Gaza Strip, Barak said that the issue was broached with the Egyptian side, said the report.
The visit of Barak came amid tensions between the two countries on the alleged weapon-smuggling into the Gaza Strip through tunnels along the Egyptian-Gaza borders.
Israel has often accused Egypt of not doing enough to prevent the alleged weapon-smuggling into Gaza, which has been denied by Egypt.
Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said on Monday that Egypt was not doing enough in curbing arms smuggling by Palestinian militants into the Gaza Strip, thus scuttling Israel’s efforts in promoting the peace process.
On Tuesday, Egypt rejected the criticism made by Livni about Egypt’s handling of the tunnels along the borders with the Gaza Strip.
Egyptian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hossam Zaki termed Livni’s statements as “unacceptable in form and content.”
According to a MENA report on Tuesday, Egyptian security forces discovered and destroyed two underground tunnels near the Egyptian-Gaza border town of Rafah.
The Egyptian security authorities are exerting more efforts to inspect the area in search for other tunnels, said the report.
Meanwhile, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit said Wednesday at a press conference in Cairo that his country confronts all violations attempted by some elements on the Egyptian-Gaza borders and every act that could complicate the country’s ties with the Palestinians and Israel.
As for the follow-up efforts after the Annapolis conference on Mideast peace held late November in the United States, Egypt said Israel’s recent settlement plan near East Jerusalem became the main obstacle to the success of the Palestinian-Israeli talks.
Following the meeting between Barak and Mubarak, Egyptian presidential spokesman Suleiman Awad said the failure of the two rounds of Palestinian-Israeli talks in December after the Annapolis conference is due to the Israeli settlement activities near East Jerusalem.
Earlier this month, the Israeli government decided to invite bids to construct 307 housing units in the settlement of Har Homa, a move decried by the Palestinian side as detrimental to the Mideast peace process reactivated at the Annapolis conference.
As a result, the first meeting between Israeli and the Palestinian negotiation teams on Dec. 12 was dominated by Palestinian protests against Israeli settlement expansions.
According to Israel’s Army Radio reports on Sunday, Israel is planning to allocate funds to build over 1,000 apartments in East Jerusalem and a settlement in the West Bank, as part of the Housing Ministry’s proposed budget for 2008.
However, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said on Wednesday that Israel was being “very careful” with regard to new construction in existing settlement blocs, Israel’s Yedioth Ahronoth reported.
Answering a question on Israel’s violations of commitments on stopping settlement activities, Barak noted that it was not new settlements but expansions of old ones.
Terming Israel’s peace relations with Egypt as “a very strategic importance,” Barak said the two sides agreed to further exchange views on the disputed issues related to the Mideast peace process.
Earlier in the day, Barak also met with his Egyptian counterpart Mohamed Hussein Tantawi and Egypt’s intelligence chief Omar Suleiman.