The prospects for peace in the Middle East and in Iraq in the light of increasing resistance to occupation were closely reviewed at a meeting held at the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Cairo last week between President Mubarak's political adviser Dr Osama Al-Baz and former Maltese Foreign Minister Dr Alex Sceberras Trigona.

Dr Al-Baz had just returned from Damascus, where he had accompanied President Mubarak in his meeting with President Assad, having earlier met Colonel Gaddafi in Tripoli.

Dr Sceberras Trigona discussed peace initiatives in the region with the Secretary General of the Arab League, Dr Amre Moussa at the League's headquarters during an extensive meeting which also covered reform of the United Nations and the international system. Dr Moussa has just been appointed by Kofi Anan, UN Secretary General, as an adviser on a high-level panel to make recommendations for the elements of a collective response to common problems, threats, challenges and change.

While in Cairo, Dr Sceberras Trigona on Wednesday gave a lecture on "Peace prospects in the Middle East and in Iraq" at the invitation of the Egyptian Council for Foreign Relations to a select group of ambassadors and representatives of the oil sector and related industries. He maintained that current and even more powerful peace initiatives were so urgently required now not only by states and peoples in and around the Middle East but also by the United States itself, as it had overplayed its hand as a sole superpower in occupying Iraq.

Both the occupation of Palestine and that of Iraq had come to an impasse, he argued, demanding feasible diplomatic interventions based on the twin principles of, on the one hand, the legitimacy of resistance to illegal occupation and on the other hand that of immediate withdrawal of foreign forces from occupied territories.

The lecture, which was followed by a candid question and answer session, was also attended by Malta's Ambassador to Egypt, George Doublesin.