U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton hosted visiting Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on Monday for an hour-long discussion on regional and bilateral issues, the State Department said. “They obviously compared notes on the status of efforts by the United States and others to resume the negotiation between Israel and Palestine as part of a comprehensive peace in the Middle East,” said spokesman P.J. Crowley. “They talked about a range of regional issues, including the situation in Iran, the situation in Sudan, where both Egypt and the United States have significant interests in both improving the situation in Darfur but also moving toward implementation of the CPA,” Crowley said, referring to the Comprehensive Peace Agreement that ended Sudan's north-south civil war. “They talked also about the situation in Pakistan and Afghanistan as we approach elections in Afghanistan on Thursday,” Crowley told reporters. Clinton and Mubarak discussed several bilateral issues including “economics and trade, educational opportunities, human rights, and democracy in Egypt,” Crowley said. “It was a wide-ranging discussion befitting the strategic partnership between Egypt and the United States.” President Mubarak was scheduled to meet several top Obama administration officials Monday (including Clinton, Vice President Joseph Biden, and National Security Advisor James Jones) ahead of his meeting Tuesday morning with President Barack Obama, the Egyptian leader's first White House visit in five years.
