WASHINGTON Ñ Congress has launched a dialogue with Egypt over U.S. intelligence reports that North Korea has supplied Cairo with medium-range ballistic missiles.

The issue was raised by several congressional delegations that have toured the Middle East over the last week. Egypt has denied missile cooperation with Pyongyang.

Several of the visiting U.S. lawmakers said North Korean missile cooperation with Egypt could be high on the congressional agenda. They said Washington would not tolerate continued missile sales by Pyongyang to Cairo.

Rep. Henry Waxman, a California Democrat, said a delegation of five House members, discussed the Egyptian-North Korean missile cooperation with Egyptian Defense Minister Hussein Tantawi. The delegation was led by House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt.

"We made it clear that we weren't supportive of any effort to go to North Korea for missiles," Rep. Henry Waxman, a California Democrat, said. "They said they weren't interested."

Waxman said the Egyptian-North Korean missile cooperation is a major concern of Congress. He would not elaborate.

Congressional sources said House and Senate leaders were dismayed by a classified CIA report that discussed Egyptian-North Korean missile cooperation. The report was said to have asserted that the regime of President Hosni Mubarak had not been truthful in previous denials that Cairo had ended missile cooperation with Pyongyang.

Mubarak is expected to visit Washington in April and discuss bilateral relations with President George Bush and Congress. Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher will be sent to the United States over the coming weeks to prepare for the Mubarak visit.

Last year, a House International Relations subcommittee disclosed that Egypt was feared to have bought intermediate-range No-Dong missiles from North Korea. The issue was also discussed between a visiting Egyptian defense delegation and members of Congress.

Congressional leaders stressed that they were not seeking a confrontation with Egypt. They attributed the lid on Middle East tension to Egyptian efforts to maintain peace with Israel despite the current war with the Palestinians.

"They're still there," Gephardt said last week after his Egyptian visit. "When we met with the leaders of Egypt I saw no change in that. It's not a warm cooperative peace that you would hope for, but it's peace."

Over the weekend, Mubarak met the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Richard Meyers. Myers praised Egyptian cooperation with the United States in the war against terrorism.

On Monday, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Political and Military Affairs Lincolin Bloomfield continued discussions with Egypt on nonproliferation issues as well as the U.S. war against terrorism.

Bloomfield spent two days in Cairo before departing to Amman for talks on Tuesday.

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