Mubarak Quotes Sadat: "Keep Your Hands off Lebanon"
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said that his country still supported Lebanon and quoted former Egyptian President Anwar Sadat’s saying, “Keep your hands off Lebanon.” “We still support Lebanon, and we will not dump it,” he said.
After meeting with French President Nicolas Sarkozy in Paris on Wednesday, Mubarak said that he has welcomed Lebanese leaders in Egypt and he would welcome others in the future.
He said that Egypt had welcomed President Michel Sleiman in the past, when he was still army commander. Although Mubarak emphasized that Egypt had not proposed Sleiman for presidency, and that the visit was for military co-ordination, “in the end the Lebanese chose him and accepted him as president,” he said.
“When Egypt welcomes someone it does not do it for nothing but knows that he is an active figure and could lead,” he said.
Meanwhile Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmad Abu al-Gheit said that his country’s efforts with Lebanese officials and politicians were designed to reinforce stability in Lebanon until the 2009 parliamentary elections and afterward.
In an interview with Al-Sharq al-Awsat daily on Thursday, Abu al-Gheit said that Egyptian efforts to achieve stability in Lebanon in the post-election period aimed to work in such a way that once the results were known there would be agreement among the Lebanese about administering the country through understanding.
Abu al-Gheit said that the US raid on Syria on Sunday was a surprise to all and he hoped it would not happen again because it repetition would lead to escalation of hostility and addition of a new destabilizing element in the Middle East.