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Clinton leans on Mubarak to reverse boycott of summit

CAIRO [MENL] -- Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak appears on the verge of agreeing to attend the Middle East peace summit in Oslo on Tuesday, Arab diplomats said on Sunday.

The diplomats said Mubarak discussed his attendance at Oslo during a phone call on Saturday with U.S. President Bill Clinton. Clinton urged Mubarak to reverse his decision to boycott the Oslo summit with Israel and the Palestinian Authority amid tensions between Cairo and Washington.

Hours later, Foreign Minister Amr Mussa said Egypt would attend the Oslo summit but did not say whether Mubarak would participate. U.S. officials have rejected Egypt's original plans to send Mussa instead of Mubarak to the summit.

Mussa on Saturday met Egypt's ambassador to Israel, Mohammed Bassiouny, and the two men denied any rift between Cairo and Israel. Bassiouny again denied remarks attributed to Defense Minister Hussein Tantawi that warned of a possible war with Israel.

Relations between Egypt and the United States have been tense over the last few weeks amid disputes regarding the Middle East peace process, arms proliferation and Sudan's civil war. On Sunday, the London-based A-Sharq al-Awsat reported that efforts will continue to improve relations between Egypt and the United States.

The daily said U.S. officials are discussing a trip by U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to Cairo to resolve the disputes.

In an unrelated development, Bashir Assad, the son and heir-apparent of Syrian President Hafez Assad plans to visit Cairo soon and meet with Egyptian leaders, the official Egyptian MENA news service reported. The report comes amid reports that relations between Egypt and Syria have declined as the leaders of the two countries failed to meet in nearly six months.

Diplomats said Egyptian-Syrian relations plunged over the last few months in the wake of what they said was an improvement in ties between Cairo and Jerusalem after the election of Prime Minister Ehud Barak. Assad several times rejected Mubarak's call for an Arab summit and severed routine contacts between the two countries.