950819

Mubarak meets US official on Iraqi developments

CAIRO: Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on Saturday met US. Assistant Secretary of State Robert Pelletreau who is touring the region to drum up support for US. plans to further isolate Iraq, officials sources said.

Pelletreau arrived from Jordan on Friday night after meeting King Hussein and urging him to stop accepting supplies of Iraqi oil.

Mubarak met Pelletreau at his summer resort in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria. The meeting was attended by Mubarak's top political adviser Osma el-Baz, the sources said.

A spokesman at the US. embassy in Cairo said Pelletreau would leave Egypt on Saturday but refused to say where. Earlier reports said he was expected to visit Saudi Arabia and Kuwait to convince the two oil-rich states to either make up for Jordan's oil needs or provide other assistance.

In Washington, State Department's deputy spokesman David Johnson told reporters on Friday: "The objective is to insure that Iraq complies with all of the Security Council resolutions. And we're pushing in every way we can to put pressure on Iraq to do so."

Asked if this meant Washington was trying to cut off one of Iraq's oil customers, he replied: "Well, I think that would be consistent with the U.N. Security Council resolutions."

Egypt was a key US. ally in the 1990-91 Gulf crisis and played a major role in massing Arab support behind the US.-led alliance to liberate Kuwait for Iraq's seven-month occupation.-Reuter